Longines continues its tradition
Longines unveils a new model to add to its Conquest collection, a name borne by many of the brand’s successful pieces over the years: Conquest 1/100th Horse Racing. Now keeping time to one hundredth of a second, this watch includes a unique movement that surpasses its predecessors. The creation of this model sees Longines continue its long tradition as a timekeeper for equestrian sports and pays homage to all those passionate about flat racing.
Longines, timekeeper for sporting performances since the end of the 19th Century, is launching a new line of watches that have been specially created for sports which require high precision timing. The Conquest 1/100th series responds to the needs of athletes, professionals and sports fans, besides many others, since it measures multiple intermediary times and has an intuitive analogue display that shows the time to one hundredth of a second using a separate hand. All of this is possible thanks to the latest generation of quartz movement developed exclusively for Longines by ETA.
You need to go all the way back to 1878 in order to find the first traces of Longines’ involvement in equestrian sport. It was actually at this time that the brand produced one of its most emblematic items, a watch engraved with the image of a jockey on his mount which allowed performances to be timed to the second. Seen on the race courses from 1881, this model was already being used by most judges in New York by 1886. Consequently, the importance that Longines placed in equestrian competitions grew while the brand continued to push the boundaries of precision. Today, Longines is continuing its rich tradition in sports timekeeping by unveiling the Conquest 1/100th Horse Racing, a silver faced range of the Conquest 1/100th.
Just like the original model from 1878, this watch is aimed at everyone involved in the world of flat horse racing – from trainers seeking to assess the current fitness of their horses to performance-oriented jockeys, owners, purchasers of future champions and passionate spectators gathered around the racecourse. All of them hold onto this universal, yet relative notion: time. It is time that determines the winner, immortalises the feat and creates the legends surrounding exceptional horses.
According to Christiane “Criquette” Head-Maarek , friend of the Longines brand and considered to be one of the best race horse trainers given the exceptional triple victories she secured both at the Prix de Diane Longines and at the Qatar Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe: “Thoroughbreds are top athletes; it requires a great deal of precision to train them. You have to be able to measure their performances to almost one hundredth of a second at each section of the course. A thoroughbred can run at 50 km/h for more than one kilometer, with a burst of speed at 70 km/h. At this speed, one hundredth of a second equates to 20 cm; that’s enough distance to win by a neck’s length!”
The demands required for Longines to reach such an extreme level of precision have led to the development of a new unique quartz movement, the L440. This new model includes a microcontroller with a flash memory that allows the watch to be reset instantly and allows intermediary times to be recorded. With a diameter of 41 mm, this bright steel model has a silver face that displays hours, minutes, small seconds at 6 o’clock, the date and other chronographic functions: a central seconds hand, a 30-minute stopwatch at 2 o’clock and a 12-hour stopwatch at 10 o’clock. The hand in red displays time to one hundredth of a second and is the watch’s crowning glory at the centre. The model is also fitted with a steel bracelet and a butterfly clasp.
