How the Palio's Horses Are Chosen

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Eighty-five horses were cleared to go forward for the Palio dell'Assunta. Thirty-five reached the Tratta on the morning of the race's third day. Ten will carry a contrada's year. Not one of those contrade chose the animal it got.

Ask a visitor how the Palio works and they will describe the ninety seconds: three laps, bareback, the roar. Ask how the horse got there and the answer usually stops. It is the part of the Festa that decides most and is explained least — and it happens days before anyone in a grandstand seat has taken their place.

The mechanism matters because it is the reason the Palio cannot be bought. A contrada may hire the finest fantino in Tuscany. It may spend a year on alliances. It cannot select its horse.

Selection begins with a veterinary surgeon, not a captain

Before the Campo is involved at all, the horses are examined. For the 2026 Assunta the Commissione veterinaria del Palio ran three days of visits at the clinica del Ceppo at Monteresi, and only then published who could go forward: seventy-seven horses admitted to the prove regolamentate, and eight admitted directly to the Tratta.

The Captains of the contrade are consulted at this stage. The Comune's own wording is worth reading closely: the consultation is "non vincolante come recita il Regolamento per il Palio" — not binding, as the Palio regulation states. The seventeen contrade have an opinion. The veterinary commission has the decision.

The trials narrow the field to thirty-five

The prove regolamentate ran in Piazza del Campo on Tuesday 11 and Wednesday 12 August, from six in the morning — an hour chosen for the horses rather than for spectators, and one of the quietest, most revealing things to watch in the whole week.

After those two mornings the commission published the Tratta field: thirty-five horses — from the eighty-five that had been cleared to go forward a few days earlier. How many were examined in total at Monteresi to arrive at that eighty-five, the Comune does not say.

The Tratta: a morning that decides a year

On Thursday 13 August the admitted horses are registered and drawn into batterie — heats. For the 2026 Assunta the Comune published five batterie of seven horses each, numbered 1 to 35, each horse with a named rider for the heat. The track is cleared at 8.40. At nine the mortaretto, the small signal charge, marks the first horses coming out of the Entrone in the Cortile del Podestà beneath the Palazzo Pubblico.

A detail worth knowing, because it trips people up: the fantino riding a horse in the batterie is riding for the trial, not for a contrada. Contrade choose their jockeys after the assignment, so the names on the Tratta sheet are not a preview of who rides on the 16th.

The Comune also publishes what is in the field, and it repays a look. All thirty-five presented in the Cortile del Podestà on the morning: twenty-nine geldings and six mares, aged five to twelve, averaging a little over seven. Twenty-three bays, nine chestnuts, three greys. Thirty-one different owners for thirty-five horses — this is not a sport of large stables. The youngest, at five, is Erminio Baio; the oldest, both twelve, are Volpino and Viso d'Angelo.

The batterie are not a race and nothing is won in them. They exist so the Captains can watch thirty-five horses on the actual surface, at the actual angles — the drop to San Martino, the rise to the Casato — and see which of them can handle a track that punishes the wrong stride.

Then comes the part that is genuinely unlike any other race in Europe. The Captains meet, together, and choose ten horses. Not ten horses each: ten horses in total, the field for the Palio. And those ten are then assigned to the ten contrade that will run.

Read that sequence twice, because the order is the whole point. The horses are chosen first, as a group, on merit. Only afterwards are they matched to the contrade — and by then no Captain is choosing anything. The Comune's report of the ceremony itself calls it only the assegnazione, but its order-of-the-canapi notice the same day is explicit: citing article 62 of the Regolamento per il Palio, it describes the contrade as those that "furono estratte a sorte per partecipare al Palio" and gives the third prova's line-up as the "ordine d'estrazione delle Contrade per l'assegnazione dei cavalli" — the order in which the contrade were drawn for the horse assignment. The Comune's own Palio site is plainer still: its standing description of the Assegnazione has the horses allotted "a sorte", and states that "i dieci cavalli selezionati sono assegnati alle Contrade per sorteggio" — the ten selected horses are assigned to the contrade by draw. Chance is written into the procedure, and into the regulation that governs it. A contrada's year turns on which of the ten it ends up with.

For the 2026 Assunta the assignment was made on the afternoon of Thursday 13 August, the chiarine of the Palazzo Pubblico marking both its start and its end. In the order it was carried out:

Corriere di Siena describes two of the ten, Euskaldi and Diamante Sauro, as debutants.

The name to know in that table is Diodoro, and where he landed is the story of the day. He is the horse that won the July Palio for Aquila under Giovanni Atzeni, Tittia — and he did not go back to Aquila. He went to Lupa. Aquila, holding the drappellone from six weeks ago, drew Benitos instead.

Diodoro is a chestnut gelding foaled in 2019 at a stable in Castelnuovo Berardenga, and the story around him is unusually close-knit: his owner is Ilaria Bisconti, wife of Tittia, who both trains and rides him. He won on his Palio debut in July 2025, carrying Oca, and has now taken two of the three Palii he has run. La Voce del Palio, reviewing the record on 19 July 2026, placed him joint third — level with ten other horses — among the winningest horses in the Campo since 2000, one behind Fedora Saura and two behind Berio.

None of which he takes with him. A horse's record does not transfer to the contrada that draws him. Lupa named Dino Pes, Velluto, to ride him — and Tittia, who won on Diodoro in July, rides against him for Nicchio on Anda e Bola.

What happens in the six hours afterwards

The assignment is not the end of the day. At 18.15 the mortaretto sounds its warning, the track is cleared at 18.45, and at 19.15 the horses come out again for the first prova, the first of the trial runs that fill the days before the race.

So a contrada learns its fate in the morning and sees the animal run in its own colours that same evening. From the moment of assignment the horse is in the contrada's keeping, stabled within its territory and watched around the clock. It does not leave that care until the race.

The fantini are the next piece. Contrade hire their riders only once they know their horse, which is why the jockey market moves in the hours after the assignment rather than before it. For the 2026 Assunta the market took a single afternoon: the Comune published the ten accoppiate the same day, hours before the first prova, in the order the contrade take the canapi.

Those are the pairings for the first prova, which is not the same thing as the final word. A Captain files his rider's name in writing with the Comune after the provaccia on the morning of the race, and only from that moment can the fantino no longer be changed. Until then a contrada may still swap.

Why the assignment is the fairness

Every other element of the Palio can be worked on. The fantino is hired and can be outbid. Alliances between contrade are negotiated, and the Comune formally encourages written agreements between them. Strategy is a year-round occupation.

The horse is the one thing no amount of preparation reaches. It is why a contrada that has waited decades can win, and why a favourite can be undone before the rope drops. The Palio is not fair in the sense of being equal. It is fair in the sense that its central variable is beyond anyone's reach — and that is decided on a Thursday morning in August, in front of anyone who cares to stand and watch.

The Palio dell'Assunta was due on the evening of Sunday 16 August 2026 and was postponed by rain on two consecutive days; it was run at 19.00 on Tuesday 18 August 2026. Nicchio took the Drappellone, ridden by Giovanni Atzeni, Tittia, on Anda e Bola — the horse and jockey drawn in the pairings above. Full result: the field, the days, and the result.

Practical information

When: the Tratta is the morning of the race's third day — 13 August for the Assunta, 29 June for the Palio di Provenzano. The batterie begin at nine; the track is cleared from 8.40.

Where: Piazza del Campo. The horses come out of the Entrone in the Cortile del Podestà.

Cost: free. This is one of the few parts of Palio week that asks nothing of a visitor but an early start.

Worth knowing: the prove regolamentate two days earlier begin at six in the morning and draw a fraction of the crowd. For anyone who wants to understand the race rather than simply attend it, that hour is the better ticket.

Continue reading

• How the Palio actually works — the mossa, the rivalries and the rituals around the race itself
• How to watch the Palio di Siena — where to stand, what a seat costs, and how to buy one safely
• The seventeen contrade — who is racing, and why it is closer to nationality than neighbourhood

By the Siena & Toscana editors