The War over, the Sienese returned to  their daily traditions. They remembered their war dead, welcomed returning veterans, and the Contrada Associations reopened their doors. The Eagle and the Tower held dinners for the1939 victories the outbreak of war had stopped them from celebrating. And the Sienese asked for an extraordinary Palio. The first peace-time mayor, caught up in other priorities arising from the important moment, incautiously uttered from a triple window in the Palazzo Comunale words that no mayor of Siena must ever say: “Citizens, either me or the Palio!” The replies of the noisy crowd in the Piazza are easily imagined. In the end the mayor stayed on, but the Palio of Peace was held on 20 August 1945.

In the race a law student at the Sienese Atheneum triumphed, Gioacchino “Rubacuori” Calabrò, riding Folco, the old, much-loved hero. The Palio was particularly tumultuous. There were fist-fights in which soldiers of the Allied troops got involved. After the race, disappointed members of the Caterpillar chased Rubacuori and ripped the Great Banner  to shreds. The Dragon keeps a copy they had painted at their own expense.

In 1950, thanks to the initiative of the Friends of the Palio, the Masgalgano was reinstituted, the prize given for the demeanor of the costumed representatives and for the skill of their Standard-Bearers and drummer. Designation of the winning Contrada was based on points awarded by commissioners around the track.

That same year an important innovation modified the Start, which since then has been set on the Judges’ Stand by a mechanical device invented by a Sienese named Aldo Sprugnoli. The order is learned at the last moment, when the horses are at the Casato and are headed toward the starting area. With this device the Start is determined by chance. Previously the mayor had prepared the order, filling out by  his own discretion 3 lists, one of which was drawn.

In the Palio of August, 1946 the jockey from Manziana, Giuseppe “Ciancone” Gentili achieved the first of his 9 successes; he remained inarguably foremost among the jockeys of the Piazza until the rise of Andrea De Gortes. Gentili was a jockey of great intelligence and  unsurpassed skill, loved and hated, feared and respected as few others in Palio history. His detractors called him “Beppe the Greedy,” his admirers called him “the professor,” a nickname then handed on to Aceto. Several of his winning races are remembered as having been perfectly run. But in 1961, running for the Goose, the starting rope found him in the 9th position. The Tower, eternal archrival, was 10th, the position of “the running start” that prompts the Start. Vittorino, jockey for the Tower, shot past Ciancone, brushing against him. Ciancone had no time to block the adversary or to show everyone that at least he had tried to get in his way. Vittorino proceeded to win. “My horse took a wrong step,” Ciancone tried to justify himself to the furious members of the Goose who were ready to lynch him; theTower, in mocking songs, sang of a raise in the price of betrayal for a turn-coat: 3, 5, 6 million. Gentili, despite his stuntman-like physique, felt the aches of the Contrada’s wrath even 6 months later.

The same years also witnessed the lovely fable of Vittorino and Gaudenzia. Giorgio Terni came from Monte Amiata; in 1953 he arrived in the Shell, which became his Contrada, home, and workplace. He ran for the Shell in 10 races and won 3; all in all, he collected 21 races and 6 victories. Athletic, cool and with lightning-fast reflexes, he was famous for fiery starts after unnervingly long waits. Vittorino was the trainer to Gaudenzia, a maremma dapple-grey mare who came into the Piazza at 10 years of age in 1952. Gaudenzia was docile and fast, precise and generous: ideal traits for Vittorino’s gifts with which to make an unbeatable pair. In August1954 luck and Contrada strategy divided Gaudenzia and Vittorino and had them run against each other. Gaudenzia lost her rider – on purpose, so they say – and for 2 circuits  tried to pass Vittorino who was first and who tried to keep her behind. Despite the whiplashes, Gaudenzia passed him in the last meters of the race and won, with the Piazza in   delirium. Vittorino went to hug her with tears in his eyes. Her adventure in the Palio ended in glory, Gaudenzia returned to the hills of Celsa, on the estate of Benito Giachetti, where she died at 30, surrounded by the Contrada members’ love.

Gaudenzia was not the only heroine of those years. In August of 1957 the Eagle was represented by the jockey Diavola, the nickname for Rosanna Bonelli, once the stand-in for Diana Dors who, with Vittorio Gassman, filmed Luigi Zampa’s “La ragazza del Palio” in Siena. Diavola made a great impression during the Trial Runs, and in the Palio she was third when she fell at San Martino’s corner. The Contrada members feted her, despite her unfortunate race.

On the 2 July 1955 new costumes appeared in the Piazza, following the by now established rhythm of a renewal in every generation. The insignia of Montalcino has been paraded with special emphasis ever since because that spring the Sienese held the first long march to that city in remembrance of the asylum received by the Government in exile of the Sienese Republic. The march is repeated every 8 years.

The last structural change in the Palio took place between the 1950s and the 1960s, with the arrival of horses and then of jockeys from Sardinia.

The maremma horses were indeed becoming scarcer; breeding centers were closing and, with the rise of mass motorized transportation, work- and draught-horses had almost disappeared. The Palio, however, called for horses ever faster and more precise. Thus began the era of the Sardinian horses. The first of the great Sardinian horses was a mare called Uberta de Mores, who in 1960 and 1961 won 4 consecutive Palios. She was trained by Gentili, who ran her in the province or with other horses and jockeys in the Palio of Cinecittà, giving her the chance to be among the “walk-ons” in the first spaghetti westerns. Soon the presence of Sardinian horses became predominant. In the August,1962 Palio; 9 of the 10 horses were Sardinian. Up against them was the last legendary maremma horse, who often changed name and ownership: he was called Eucalipto, Ettore, Dragone, and finally Topolone. In 17 races he won 7 victories. Born in 1954, Topolone was big, powerful, short in the mid-section (“It’s like sitting in an armchair,” said jockeys who rode him), precise like few other barbs ever seen in the Piazza. His victorious race for the Shell won him the praises of singer, Gianni Brera, who in his epinicion wrote, “Ah, Topolone, Saracen devil! / Ah, my Topolone, ah Shell!” In 1969 Topolone won the fastest Palio until then, in 1 min. 15 secs, a record, so they said, unbroken since 1926. After him, in the 1970s, the Piazza greeted Urbino de Orzieri, a horse that was capricious and shadowy, nervous and victorious. Between 1978 and 1979 Urbino de Orzieri won 3 Palios, set a record for the track, and then left the scene, victim of the complex reasons connected to Palio strategy and, above all, of his inarguable superiority.

With the last venture of Gentili, winner for the Wave at 55 years of age, the era of the Tuscan-Lazial jockeys ended. Following the Sardinian horses, jockeys came from the same island in 2 great waves. The first was that of jockey-farmers who found their natural habitat in the agricultural, pastoral communities of Sardinians relocated en masse to the Sienese Chalkdowns. The second wave was that of Sardinian jockeys who reached the Piazza by way of other racetracks. Among them  was Andrea De Gortes who would go on to earn the title “King of the Piazza” and to dominate the world of jockeys and the Palio scene for a quarter of a century.

From the start, Aceto showed an impeccable style, cool nerves and a great determination. He  capitalized on his adversaries’ errors and his own good fortune, making several of his Palio victories absolutely sensational. In other Palios he triumphed by strength or by cunning. He bound himself to the Goose, but often managed to convince the same Contrada that the best strategy to make the rival Tower lose was for him to run for other Contrade to which chance had given the best horses. Struggling against him and helping him there were mainly 2 jockeys: Bastiano, a lanky Arcadian from Vescona in the Sienese Chalkdowns, and Canapino, descended from the maremma cowboys, a great breeder of Palio horses on his ranch in the area of Asciano. In his oustanding career, Aceto would win 14 times wearing the colors of almost all the Contrade. Aceto became a nationally famous personality, to whom myriad articles, innumerable television interviews, and, today, 3 biographies have been dedicated. Aceto transformed the image of the Palio jockey. His requests were those of a professional who levelheadedly negotiates the terms of his services according to the laws of demand and offer. After a sensational divorce from the Goose, he joined up with the Tortoise, then with the Tower. Though he has stepped back from the Piazza, his influence in the world of jockeys remains, as does the national attention he attracts. Many fans await his return, his nth sensational gesture.