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Longines, Official Timekeeper Of Kentucky Derby, Gifts Watches To Race Winners

Filed under: Timepieces / Watches, Sports

Longines, now the official timekeeper of the Kentucky Derby and its home track Churchill Downs, recently was able to award the winners of the 2011 Kentucky Derby with a Longines Column-Wheel Chronograph watch. Longines recorded a winning time of 2.04 minutes as the running time for "Animal Kingdom" the winning horse. The Swiss brand rewarded the horse owner Barry Irwin, jockey Johnny Velazquez, and trainer Graham Motion each with the classically inspired timepiece. The link above will take you to a previous article that discusses the piece further along with Longines' involvement with them famous horse race. Participation with the well-known high-society event is important to the historic brand that is fighting for a larger share of the US high-end watch market. It is also part of an overall trend of watch brands taking more of a key role in popular US cultural events.

Ariel Adams publishes the luxury watch reviews site aBlogtoRead.com.

Gallery: Longines Kentucky Derby 2011

Tags: 2011, kentucky derby, longines, timekeeper, watch, winner

Longines Column-Wheel Chronograph Watch For Winner Of Kentucky Derby

by Ariel Adams (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Timepieces / Watches

Longines is now the official timekeeper and timepiece maker of the Kentucky Derby and its track Churchill Downs. For this year's esteemed horse race Longines will present one of their newer Column-Wheel Chronograph watches to the winner of the race.

Longines - part of the Swatch Group - worked with ETA (also part of the Swatch Group) to develop a special movement for Longines that captured the classic nature of the traditional watch brand. The movement is an automatic chronograph, but one that uses a historic column-wheel transmission system in the movement. Column-wheel chronographs are those found in many of the best chronograph movements.

Set in a steel case, the Ref. L2.733.4.72.2 Longines Column-Wheel Chronograph is extremely classic in its execution and design. The case is 39mm wide in steel, with a brown alligator strap. The exclusive movement inside of the watch is the mechanical caliber L688.2 which provides the tricompax chrono subdial layout. The dial design is extremely classic. In fact the entire watch is more or less a recreation of a classic Longines watch design. The dauphine hands have thin strips of lume, and there are applied hour and minute markers. For a bit of nostalgia the piece is very nice, price is $2,850.

Ariel Adams publishes the wrist watch reviews site aBlogtoRead.com.

Tags: colum wheel, kentucky derby, L2.733.4.72.2, longines, prize, watch, winner