Tailgunner Joe

Look at his last six runs and you see a horse that spent a long time finishing sixth, seventh, and eighth — then suddenly won at Meydan in February 2026, a track in Dubai that hosts some serious international racing. That win came five months ago, and before it, he had rattled off three consecutive sixth-place finishes. Horses that break a losing run like that — especially at a high-profile venue — tend to do it because something clicked: the right conditions, the right distance, the right day. His very first win came at Catterick Bridge back in July 2025, a tight, turning track in North Yorkshire that rewards horses with a bit of tactical sharpness.

Where Tailgunner Joe has genuinely struggled is at the top level. He has run three times in Class 1 races — the biggest and most prestigious races in Britain — and has yet to trouble the judge in any of them. That is not a disgrace; plenty of good horses find the step up in class a wall rather than a door. But it does suggest his best form comes when the competition drops back a notch.

He is trained by Dylan Cunha at a Newmarket yard that has been in fine form, sending out 45 winners already this season — a number that speaks to a well-run operation with horses coming to hand at the right time. Tailgunner Joe raced just yesterday, so he is very much in active campaign. Whether Cunha finds another race that suits him the way Meydan did remains to be seen, but a horse that has won on two different continents before his third birthday has clearly got something about him.