Jamie Lynch's Weekend Preview: Meri’s a jolie good fellow

It’s hard to believe, given their proliferation since, but there were no Graded races for mares in Britain until the 2007/8 season brought a new and novel programme, a more radical swing from the shuffle three years earlier when the weight-for-sex allowance was increased from 5 lb to 7 lb. The direct implications were debated and discredited at the time, questioning the value of increasing the value, but a climate change was the covert challenge, and, sure enough, the days of accepting jumps-bred mares going straight to stud are now long gone. It took recognition of a problem to get recognition for the mares, giving power to that posse and, ultimately, giving Annie Power to the people.

And so to the controversial concession for female riders, announced last week by the French authorities. It strikes me that the very thing France Galop are being accused of is the very thing they are trying to address. American political commentator Brit Hume said that fairness is not an attitude but a professional skill that must be exercised. But rightly (999/1) or wrongly (1.01), in racing, in riding, fairness is an attitude that, like a dowdy demon, must be exorcised, for a professional’s skill to be seen.

For France Galop, it seems, it’s a matter of amending the front line to change the nature of the battle, not the other way around, as the critics perceive. And there are critics far and wide, solicited from every jurisdiction which has a jockey, bringing us to another important point: the French, like sisters, are doing it for themselves. They’re not preaching nor reaching to the rest of the racing world, France Galop are only responding to domestic data, a year-long study, whereby 100 or so licensed female riders are ‘overwhelmingly less represented in the races than their male colleagues.’ While everybody else, from different districts with different circumstances, is reacting with inflammation, France is acting on information.

‘Rather stupid’ was how the French allowance was described by Emma-Jayne Wilson, rider of over 1300 winners and counting in North America. ‘Athletes should be judged on their skills and strengths, regardless of their gender,’ added Wilson, who has appeared five times in the Girls’ Team on Shergar Cup day. That’s the Girls’ Team, in what’s billed as this country’s most populist racing event. No sexism, please France, we’re British.

In her continent, Emma-Jayne Wilson had trailblazers like Julie Krone to pave a pioneering path that cut through prejudice. That might have made it easier, but far from easy, and Wilson’s status is testament to her talent and temper. Two weeks after the 2014 Shergar Cup, Wilson put her Euro experience into action when winning the feature Flaming Page at Woodbine, riding Meri Shika for the first time. ‘The instructions were to get her covered up like they do in Europe,’ said Wilson, the plan hatched by trainer Roger Attfield, who had recruited the filly, from France, in 2013, the year Meri Shika’s full-sister was born; and this one looks like leading the boys a Meri dance.

If inequality exists anywhere it’s in maiden hurdles in Ireland, where all creatures great and small, off and not, are thrown together in a convergence of classes the like of which is only elsewhere seen in the toilets at Longchamp on Arc day. How unfair, then, for Meri Devie’s hurdling debut, of all the faces in all the races in all the world, she had to walk into Housesofparliament, a 118-rated Flat juggernaut fresh from finishing third in the St Leger. How astounding, then, that Meri Devie went off favourite ahead of him.

Meri Devie had herself contested a Group 1 on her final Flat start in France for Nicholas Clement, Willie’s new best friend, from whom he also sourced Melon, though she was chancing her arm in that Prix Saint-Alary (16/1 and seventh of nine), and had no business looking into Housesofparliament’s eye let alone staring him out, but that’s what the magic of Mullins can do.

In theory, the 7 lb mares allowance at Leopardstown made a decisive difference, as she won by five lengths when it translates to nearer six, but in reality she had Housesofparliament beaten all ends up, Walsh almost toying with him before the finishing flourish on the run-in, like an extravagant signature at the bottom of a word-perfect letter of intent. In the Grade 1 Spring Juvenile Hurdle back there this Sunday, Walsh may be aboard Bapaume, partly for politics, partly for comfort, 11 stone versus 10-7, but Meri Devie is potentially in a league above.

Whether it’s female horses or riders, any set allowance has an in-built assumption that the standards of the recipients are the same, but some are more equal than others, and Meri Devi’s starting standard is so high that she looks the equal of any juvenile around. Her price for the Triumph, of 7/1, could easily be 7/2 by Sunday evening.