Built to Be Hit: Polo’s Hidden Influence on Haute Horology

The only sport that made haute horology sweat.

By Business of Polo Editorial Team

Most luxury sports adopt watches. Polo invented one.

In 1931, when British officers in India needed a timepiece tough enough to survive a chukker, Jaeger-LeCoultre answered with the Reverso, a rectangular Art Deco marvel that flipped its case to shield the dial from mallets and hooves. It was the first time high watchmaking bent to the raw demands of sport, marrying utility with elegance.

Art Deco Meets Utility

The Reverso's brilliance lay in its design. The case could be turned over, leaving one face for timekeeping and the reverse side for a family crest, a regiment’s insignia, or later, enamel miniature art. On the field it was protection. Off the field it was refinement.

At a moment when most luxury watches were delicate, the Reverso proved a watch could handle grit without losing grace. Born in the stables and carried into salons, it became an emblem of both resilience and style.

From Reverso to Richard Mille

By the 21st century, polo demanded innovation again. Richard Mille stepped in. His first polo watch with Pablo Mac Donough launched in 2012 - the RM 053, built in titanium carbide with an angled dial to hold up under mallet blows. It felt like armor.

In 2018, the new RM 53-01 Tourbillon Pablo Mac Donough debuted. Inspired by the Argentine 10-goaler’s brutal reality on the field, it featured:

• A laminated sapphire crystal: layered like a car windshield to absorb impact.

• A suspended movement: held by braided steel cables inside the case, allowing it to flex and absorb shocks.

• A skeletonised architecture: not hiding the engineering but flaunting it, turning resilience into theatre.

  
  

The result was a tourbillon that could withstand the kind of punishment no collector would dare test on any other piece.

Impact as a Flex

Most watch brands focus on heritage or complication. Richard Mille found power in defiance, selling the idea of luxury that can take a hit.

Mac Donough’s watch wasn’t meant to stay pristine, it was designed to be hit. Each strike, bump, or fall became proof of concept. Suddenly, impact wasn’t an enemy of luxury; it was a flex. The RM 53-01 turned what the Reverso had begun, utility reimagined as style, into a new form of status: watches that could withstand the violence of high goal.

Polo’s Watchmaking Legacy

Polo is rarely credited for its role in horology, but the evidence is clear:

• Without polo, there is no Reverso, the most iconic rectangular watch ever made.

• Without polo, there is no RM 53-01, the most extreme marriage of mechanics and sport.

Two watches, separated by nearly a century, prove the same truth: polo is the sport that forces high watchmaking to innovate, not just decorate.

Closing Thought

From the Art Deco salons of the 1930s to the carbon-fiber laboratories of the 2010s, polo has pushed horology into realms it might never have entered. The Reverso showed that elegance could be practical; Richard Mille proved that physics could be fashionable.

Polo was never simply the backdrop. It was the test that changed the timepieces themselves. In this sport, even a watch has to be ready for impact.

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