Jaeger-LeCoultre

You may wonder why you see a second subject about the Open de France finals in Chantilly this last Sunday!

In fact you are lucky not because you get two JLC forum moderators for the price of one, but because we don't have the same exact taste! 

So if you do your homework and go down the page, you'll see two watches you've probably never seen before!

Teasing, teasing!

A windy afternoon

So we had the pleasure to attend the last two polo games of the Open de France on Sunday afternoon, thanks to the kind invitation from Jaeger-LeCoultre.

Crowdy Chantilly

Sunday was a very windy day, but I confess such wind was perfect on a Sunday morning when you spend the Saturday night in Paris!

A proud sponsor

The Polo Club is situated in an old farm in Apremont, close to Chantilly, on the border of a beautiful forest, around 50 kilometres north of Paris.

The Open de France Cup

Jaeger-LeCoultre is for the first time the sponsor of the Open de France this year and plan to make this involvement a lasting success! Successful it was indeed.

La ferme d'Apremont, site of the Polo Club

The attendance was large enough to assure you that polo is not just an elitist sport. You don't get opportunities to watch a polo game so often, so that was a real pleasure for all.

A passionate crowd

On the opposite side of the Jaeger-LeCoutre tents some attendants had organized a very nice lunch on the grass, in the best tradition.

Lunch on the grass, more on the British side

As you can imagine the car park was somewhat interesting too, and I think JLC and Aston Martin should  offer us a Squadra Amvox Alarm with a plain back for the real players!

Aston Martin DB7 GT

Prince Charles was not there, polo is a young men's sport now, but he would have appreciated too.

Aston Martin DB6

We first saw the « petite finale » and then watched the expected final, the Jaeger-LeCoultre team playing the Deauville Polo Club!

If you've read Nicolas' post, you know that Deauville finally won, but the JLC team played hard.

Local colour

Looking at the now « vintage » Carrera below, I thought that the perfect stuff can be hardly improved and I'm glad that JLC did so well with the Memovox Tribute to Polaris!

The boxes of the Polo club

I was also happy to see a car I had not seen in a long while, from the good old days when Bentley cars were the top of the crop!

This car had this nice advert "Get one car for the price of two"!

Bentley Continental R from the missed good old days

We also had to perpetuate this polo tradition between the games, consisting in restoring the state of the field, harmed by the little care showed by the players.

A polo tradition

Some also took the time to play with the little games brought by the sponsors. I confess I  had to give up and take some watch pics for you.

No this is not a motorized branch of polo

Each Chukka is lasting 7 minutes, plus eventually 30 seconds at the end if necessary to end an action. This fast timing cut the afternoon in many sequences dedicated to various activities so the game was always thrilling.

Did you find the ball

Have you ever imagined that a polo field is more than 50 000 square meters large!

Waiting for the next Chukka

Did they begin to play with horses because it's so large, or is it so large because it's played on horses?

Green or red

Following my first trial on a horse in June at the London Ham, I'm seriously thinking about riding (not playing polo yet though).

Did you ever ride a horse? I'm sure you did.

Where is he

Have you ever been tempted to play polo?

No that's not me

I'm definitely more respectful of what these players do now that I've seen them in action. Polo is definitely one of the hardest sports I've ever seen and cannot just be considered as an expression of social class.

Squadra sighted

Of course you can't avoid the elegance to express itself on such a day!

Ambience

But let's get back to the teaser. I promised you something.

The usual suspects

Here is a watch I missed at the last SIHH, and I was not able then to find a pic of it.

Jaeger-LeCoultre Compressor GMT

The new Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Compressor GMT is the sport pendant of the new Master Hometime.

This is IMO the nicest Compressor (non Diving) so far ad I will just regret that it doesn't come with the gold seal on the back anymore.

Best of Compressors

If some of first Compressor dial designs could have been considered a bit too trendy, the face offered this time is quite serious and still very attractive (IMVHO).

One hundred or one thousand

Now that we have been caught by the Diving models, the 41.5mm Compressor also appears to be somewhat more reasonable in size.

The cleaner face of a compressor

This watch will certainly be a success product. May I add that it is already available, at least in the JLC boutique in Paris!

The Explorer 2 from JLC

I was surprised to see a Diving GMT on a croco strap as this watch is really a tool for me, but each man his taste….

Why a croco on this serious stuff

We also had the opportunity to see again the new Squadra models for ladies. At least I know what watch I'm supposed to offer to my wife next time.

The winner among ladies

Finally we could see a watch we discussed about, asked about, but had not seen before. Let me advise you to have a look at the Grande Ultra Thin auto 40mm on steel on a steel bracelet.

Jaeger-LeCoulre Grande Ultra Thin 40mm with steel bracelet

This watch is just gorgeous and the steel bracelet (if you like it as I do) adds a lot of presence to it. That was the nice end surprise.

Simple but so nice

I hope you enjoyed the read.

Again thank you to the French Jaeger-LeCoultre team for this great time, thank you to Ariane, Audrey, Elisabeth, Julie, Lucie, Stéphanie, Philippe, Roch and Yves!

Dje