In designing watches capable of withstanding extreme stresses, the major objectives of watchmakers are to counteract the gravitational force which, through its effects and above all its misdeeds, affects the precision of the timekeeper. When Richard Mille created this watch with a tourbillon regulator especially for polo players, the challenge was no longer the same! It became even more difficult, even insurmountable!

Polo is characterised by unpredictable and extremely violent physical shocks, particularly when the mallet hits the ball at full power. This is probably one of the most demanding sports for a watch, and even more so for a watch with a tourbillon. Sudden turns, sharp movements, violent shocks between horses and riders: all these forces are far beyond the norms usually encountered in other sports. Known as the “King of Sports”, polo is a very elegant but also very physical game.

To meet these challenges, Richard Mille had the idea of creating a watch for Pablo Mac Donough, a partner of the brand, with a case inspired by the usual “tonneau” shape but designed to withstand the extreme and recurrent shocks of a polo match. This “armoured” case has a double titanium carbide boss with two reading windows.

The manual-winding movement and the windows for reading the hours, minutes and seconds are inclined at an angle of 30°. The one-minute tourbillon regulator carriage and thus the seconds index appear in the left-hand reading window, while the hours and minutes are visible on the right. This angle of view is ideal for the rider.

The design of the tourbillon movement is entirely new and extremely compact, using skeleton main-plate and bridges with a compact layout of the gear train and barrel. The extremely light and perfectly unified movement is less subject to the centrifugal and centripetal forces generated during matches.

Its components have been subjected to demanding individual validation tests to optimise their resistance capabilities. For the numerous impact tests on this watch, Richard Mille had to adapt an impact testing machine to the “sheep-pendulum” by equipping it with a steel ball, allowing the case and movement to be subjected to impacts of up to 5 000 gr.

A challenge taken up by Richard Mille! ... once again!

Only a few pieces, known as the “Pablo Mac Donough Polo Team”, have been produced since 2012, only fifteen examples.

The watch presented here, unique in its kind, sold in 2020, is characterised by its red dial circle.