Anda e Bola, the “wine horse”, triumphs again at at the Palio di Siena “uniting” the rivals

It is often said that wine brings people together around a toast, sometimes in the most unexpected ways. And, playing on that idea, something similar has truly happened at the Palio di Siena, thanks to what we might call the “wine horse”, Anda e Bola, co-owned (together with Theo Westerman) by Marcel Van Poecke, founder and chairman of AtlasInvest, with more than 25 years of experience in the global energy sector, a passionate lover of Tuscany, and owner of Poggio Antico, one of Montalcino most beautiful and highest-altitude wine estates.
Indeed, in the August 2026 Palio, which was run yesterday, Anda e Bola, ridden by Giovanni Atzeni, known as Tittia (who thus secured his thirteenth victory on Siena famous tuff track), carried the Contrada del Nicchio to victory after a drought of almost thirty years. Yet, exactly one year earlier, on August 16th, 2025, the same Anda e Bola, then ridden by Giuseppe Zedde, known as Gingillo, had won under the colors of Nicchio rival Contrada, Valdimontone. In this way, the horse symbolically united the two “rivals”, as they are called in Siena, in a virtual toast that transcended both time and space. A tribute to excellence, of which, according to Marcel Van Poecke himself, “Tuscany, Brunello di Montalcino, and the Palio di Siena” are all emblematic examples, as he explained in this video.
While Nicchio celebrates through the streets of its Contrada, and while Tittia (still in hospital after his fall at the end of the race, though with no consequences for the horse) celebrates another personal “double triumph” (he already won in July 2026 with the Aquila Contrada), the image remains of a racehorse capable of uniting - or dividing - the two sides of one of Siena most intense rivalries, in a city that embodies the spirit of the Middle Ages like no other. Anda e Bola is not just a winning horse: in little more than twelve months, he has become one of the undisputed stars of the modern Palio. A champion who truly “Anda e Bola” (runs and flies) across Siena tuff track like few others in the city recent history.