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Our Michael Owen horse racing feature takes me back a few years to our last equine cover. On that occasion, it featured Zara Phillips and her very successful three-day eventer Toytown posing together in the yard of the stables at Gatcombe Park. I remember the shoot particularly vividly, as I was there when it was done. And it wasn't an entirely pleasant experience, as it happens.

It was a cold and misty January day when I stepped off a train at Stroud station and asked a waiting taxi driver to take me to Gatcombe Park. I'd been given fairly precise directions on how to find the Phillips residence, a small cottage located in the grounds of the Princess Royal's extensive Gloucestershire estate, and it wasn't long before I'd waved goodbye to my driver and was strolling past the stables down a narrow lane to Zara's house. I remember being quite surprised as I wandered along by the absence of security. After all, with two members of the royal family living in close proximity to each other, you'd surely expect a little police presence.

And police presence was exactly what I got as a Range Rover screeched to a halt next to me and I was confronted by two armed officers keen to know exactly what I thought I was doing in my city-boy suit wandering around on the Gatcombe Park estate. I did my best to explain that I'd come to interview Zara about her working week — but I'd somehow managed to arrive without any form of identification. An official 'stop and search' was then carried out and several calls were made before I was finally allowed on my way.

As it turned out, that was the least of my troubles. I then had to stand in the freezing stable yard for what seemed like hours while the pictures were taken. And people think journalism is easy. I bet they don't tell you this stuff on those cushy media studies courses...

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