The daughter of the late Douglas Bunn, the Master of Hickstead, Daisy is a Director of The All England Jumping Course at Hickstead, and the ninth of the ten Bunn children. Each year Daisy writes a blog for H&C in which she shares her experience of organising one of the biggest shows in the world. She will be blogging throughout this season, with exclusive giveaways for readers, so make sure you stay tuned.

What would you do if you didn’t work as a Director of the All England Jumping Course, Hickstead? Well, in my 'other life' (all things non-Hicksteady) I run my own photography business (www.honeybunnphotography.com and www.daisyhoneybunn.com - Honeybunn is actually our real surname), so ideally I would be a world renowned, prize winning photographer! And of course married to someone fabulously handsome and rich, but I mustn't be greedy.

Why do you think that the Hickstead Derby is regarded as such a special event? Predominantly, show jumping was Dad's great passion, and he often said that, 'You have to do something with your life, and mine has been Hickstead'. The Hickstead Team work very hard to maintain the wonderfully unique atmosphere that is so often commented on at Hickstead, and particularly on Derby Day, and so hopefully that is in part responsible for making it so special.

I think too the fact that the course is so unique also helps to create the drama. With only 52 clear rounds in its history, the course itself still presents as much of a challenge to the riders as beating their fellow competitors. In a time where much of the sport has become generic and, dare I say it, somewhat monotonous at times, with the majority of competition being jumped over similar looking fences on similar looking synthetic surfaces, the Derby and its monster course is a breath of fresh air. The Derby encourages its contenders, both human and equine, to rise to the challenge, and in such circumstances heroes are made.

It's real hairs on the back of your neck standing up stuff! I can't think of one Derby, and I've seen a lot of Derbies, that I haven't found super exciting. We are very lucky to be supported so well by all the top riders and owners - long may it continue!

What do you think of the Olympics being held Greenwich Park?  Ideally of course we would have liked to have seen certainly the show jumping leg of the Olympics being held at Hickstead, and for there to have been some real long lasting legacy, and some badly needed investment into the sport. However, that said, I am very excited about 2012 and I think Tim Hadaway is doing and will do an excellent job. In fact I've just found out that I’ve only been charged for half the tickets I applied for - I applied for the show jumping individual and team finals - and can't wait to find out which, what a crazy system!

London as a backdrop will be quite breath-taking and hopefully will foster more grass roots participation and take our sport to a new audience, dispelling some of the elitist myths that surround it. At the end of the day, the better the profile that the sport has, the better we all do!

Who has the best yard you’ve visited?  My love for photography has seen me travel to some incredibly far flung places, and when I was in Mexico I went and visited Poncho Romo in Monterrey. He was an old friend of Dad's and back in the day, Dad had flown out and helped him build his show - it has a mini bank, mini devil's dyke, the lot – it’s brilliant. He's a lovely man and gave me an amazing tour of his home, stables and stud farm. Dollar Girl was there at the time, like a proud old matriarch, and the place was quite simply immaculate. Beautiful but not fussy,  It was before anyone had automatic water feeders, and he even had special foal sized ones in the corner of all the paddocks. The ranch was unbelievably green and lush with perfect white post and rails everywhere and glossy mares and foals running around. It all felt a bit surreal!

What was the last thing you bought a ticket for?  The Olympics I’ve just found out, having looked at my bank account! Before that it was to the ballet Manon last night - I'm a bit theatre mad!

What was one of your funniest horse moments?  It has to be hands down the time when I fell off hunting not once, not twice, but THREE times in one day - even more humiliatingly at the first, second and third hedge on a drag line we were jumping - all before 11:15am! My friend Lucy, whose guest I was, was crying with laughter so much that she nearly fell off too.

When asked by the Lady MFH if her friend was okay, she very loyally replied that I 'wasn't really from a riding family, and didn't ride that often', only for a great friend of Dad's, and fellow Master of the Mid Surrey Drag, to gallop past and bellow, 'Yeah right, you know who that is? That's Duggie Bunn's daughter.' Dad and my brother-in-law Shane, in fact the whole extended family actually, laughed for about a month and kept doing very annoying things like asking if I’d like my water in a 'tumbler' and would I like THREE sugars in my tea!

Whose horse would you like to own and why? Pegasus, because then I could fly around everywhere taking pictures and having a lovely time, and would never have to get stuck in traffic again - one of my pet hates! And of course I'd never have to fall off hunting again! I might even be able to jump higher than Shane!

What would you change about your life? Without sounding like a complete prat, not a great deal, apart from aforementioned flying horse and devilishly handsome man. I am incredibly lucky to have Hickstead as my home and despite the challenges of working in a family business at times, my ginormous, hilarious family.

I do miss my parents a lot though, and if I had super human powers I'd get them back for a day that would be spent sitting in the garden at Hickstead Place nattering and drinking red wine.

Who do you think is the one to watch in Show Jumping juniors and seniors this year? I think there's an exciting bunch of really talented juniors coming on, and it’s great that under all the BS championed schemes they're all getting a chance to compete at top level and prepare for the big league. I think lovely Amy Inglis has great things to come, so watch this space. Seniors... I am of course incredibly biased but I'd say Shane Breen.  He's proving unstoppable at the moment with a storming Portugal tour and his recent Windsor win and he's some great horses at the moment - with those to compete with I'd say (and hope) he'll be pretty unstoppable.

How do you relax? I have always loved the theatre, so I'm never happier than ensconced in the dark watching something brilliant, but I also love just hanging out with my friends. I find playing the piano very relaxing too, despite the fact that my four-year-old niece who I live with has taken to coming in and joining me on her toy piano - relaxing is not quite the word I'd use for that! I'd be lying too if I said that I didn't find a certain amount of red wine incredibly relaxing at times too.

Who inspires you? As obvious as it is, I was very close to my Dad, and I just have to look around me to see what amazing things he achieved. As the son of a greengrocer from a small fishing village, I find what he managed to achieve very inspiring and often wonder how I'm going to manage to do the same. Our family talk a lot and I discussed everything with Dad, often getting business/boy advice - the former was more frequent and more useful! Most importantly though I think was the fact that he managed to stay very grounded and normal and was so focused on family - we're all very close and I'll always be thankful for him for that.

When did you last kick yourself? Oh crikey, every day! Juggling my work at Hickstead with my business can sometimes be quite hectic and I'm definitely guilty of trying to do too many things at once, so sometimes I’m left kicking myself through that. Oh, and my seeming extraordinary talent to get parking tickets / general motoring fines - even when I haven't done anything! In the last month alone I've had two repealed when they realised they'd made a clerical error - I didn't kick myself but there were certainly a few people I wouldn't have minded kicking!

What is your greatest achievement to date? I was pretty relieved when I finished my degree in English Literature & Russian because it was blinking hard work, and I really thought I'd completely flunked all of my Russian exams and was going to have explain it to Dad! Starting my own business and seeing that grow has been really exciting too. I got the gig to cover the World Photography Awards this year in London which was brilliant, but I did spend quite a lot of time before worrying that I would be a bit out of my depth! It went really well though to my absolute relief.

What does the rest of 2011 have in store for you? Who knows? It’s pretty flat out for me now until the end of the season at Hickstead, with lots of photography jobs squeezed in in between at weekends and evenings.  I'm really looking forward to going to Chile in the Autumn to see one of my best friends who's a marine biologist there, and to go off on my own for a bit (one of my favourite things) to explore and photograph an order of Trappist monks - although observing their habit of near constant silence will be very difficult for me because I LOVE talking!

What is your top tip for H&C website visitors?  Well, I'm no world expert on getting things right (understatement of the century), but I do put a really high premium on happiness and I'd say it really would be to follow your own path and don't let people tell you that things can't be done. My worst nightmare would be to wake up at 50 and regret what I hadn't done - regret what you do, not what you don't do!

Your Suggestions

Who would you like us to spend Ten Minutes in the Tack Room with? Email webeditor@horseandcountry.tv