We close our reporting from this year’s SIHH with a look at one of the more unusual time display designs presented at the show. Richard Mille’s new Tourbillon RM 053 Pablo Mac Donough was designed specifically for the brand’s polo-playing ambassador in order to offer him a tourbillon that could withstand the tough conditions of a polo game.

The brands in the world of haute horlogerie have adopted different techniques for facing up to the challenges of polo players who need a watch to time their chukkas that can withstand the shocks encountered during the game.

Richard Mille solves the problem with an extremely tough case in microblasted titanium and titanium carbide with just two small windows to display the time. Both the windows and the movement itself are tilted at an angle of 30 ̊ - the perfect angle for reading the time from the saddle.

The highly compact tourbillon movement has a lightweight design with a skeletonised baseplate and bridges and a compact going train-winding barrel arrangement. The lightness and compactness of the movement also make it less susceptible to the centrifugal and centripetal forces generated during a game of polo.

The RM 053 Tourbillon Pablo Mac Donough is a limited edition of 15 pieces.