'A horse like her changes lives' - on location with Laurens and her first foal

You know you're a bloodstock writer who has done too much working from home when your first stud visit in around 18 months comes perilously close to ending in decapitation.

Luckily for me, Daniel Creighton, who owns and manages Salcey Forest Stud with Josh Schwartz, clocked the neck-high electrified fence tape I was ploughing towards before I did, and provided a timely heads up just before it was heads off.

Despite the image that near disaster may portray, the purpose of my visit to this picturesque part of Warwickshire, which was doing a passable impression of the Hunter Valley on this particular summer's afternoon, was not to test my reflexes but rather to catch up with the farm's most famous resident, Laurens.