Jax Junior

The big moments have come thick and fast in recent months. He won a top-level Class 2 race at Cheltenham in April 2025, then took another Class 2 at Sandown at the end of January 2026, and then — most strikingly — landed a Class 1 at Kempton Park on 21 February, winning by 12 lengths. Twelve lengths. In a top-level race, that is not a win, it is a demolition job. Wadham described it herself: he "jumped them into submission." His jumping is his weapon, she says, combined with what jockey Tom Cannon called a "massive turn of foot" — meaning when he decides to go, he goes in a hurry. Cannon was sitting still, waiting, waiting, and then simply could not wait any longer. The race was over before most people had finished their drinks.

The partnership between Jax Junior and Cannon is worth highlighting on its own. In 13 races together, Cannon has steered him to 6 wins — that is a win rate of 46%, nearly 1 in every 2 races. That kind of mutual understanding between horse and jockey is rare and, when it clicks, it tends to show up on the scoreboard exactly like this.

There is also a health story here that makes the recent form even more remarkable. After a run at Ascot, Jax Junior bled and came home unwell. The yard gave him a second wind operation, and Wadham was candid about how much it mattered: "it's done the trick," she said after Sandown. Winning a Class 2 and then a Class 1 on the other side of a health scare and surgery is the kind of thing that makes a horse genuinely easy to root for.

He raced just yesterday, so the team is keeping him busy, and the talk around the yard is firmly pointed at Cheltenham — specifically the Arkle, one of the great two-mile races of the festival. The owners are keen. Wadham, by her own admission, is slightly braver in hindsight than in prospect. But with a horse who jumps like this on normal ground, where he wins 3 from 4 races, the dream does not look at all unreasonable.