SIX-month-old Gigi Furnell had the perfect vantage point on the Charleville working hunter course walk last Sunday with her multi-tasking mother Lili Stapleton. And next year, she’ll make her leadrein debut at the popular Munster show as Lili has already bought her a basket saddle as next year’s transport mode!

Gigi is quite the lucky charm this year as dad Dominic has qualified four horses for the Dublin young event horse classes, including Ballycahane Silver Athena. The Pointilliste five-year-old is the first offspring of Dominic’s Ballycahane Silver Vixen and the Gurraun Zidane mare was actually in-foal with Athena when she herself won the Charleville working hunter championship in 2017.

Dominic’s winning streak in the working hunter championship continued last Sunday, this time with Niamh McNamara’s Dukes Endeavour. The KEC Maximum Joe chesnut won the seven-year-old and over working hunter class at Dublin last year and will return to the RDS his year. “We’ll be all-hands-on-deck and the baby backpack will be in full use at Dublin!” Lili said.