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Here he focuses on Ascot's big-race winners Pyledriver and Lezoo - subscribers can get more great insight from Martin every Monday to Friday.

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David Redvers will no doubt have derived immense satisfaction from the fact that two of the big winners at Ascot on Saturday were conceived at his Tweenhills Farm and Stud, but he might also have allowed himself a wry smile at the fickle nature of the stallion business.

For while the exciting Princess Margaret Stakes winner Lezoo is from the first northern hemisphere crop of the operation’s bright young thing Zoustar, the popular King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes hero Pyledriver is an unexpected high point from the five generations left by its short-lived and, it has to be said, somewhat disappointing former resident Harbour Watch.

“It’s why breeding a racehorse is such a wonderful thing,” reflected Redvers philosophically on his way home after helping to present Pyledriver’s connections with their prizes in his role with sponsor Qipco. “Thank god it throws up these complete fairy tales.

“It’s fantastic to be part of it. It gives every breeder, however small, the hope that they too can breed a winner at the very top table.”

Pyledriver is certainly a head-scratcher on breeding, and I don’t need to be as anxious about upsetting his connections by saying that as I usually might, as they themselves called the horse “very modestly bred” in a TV interview during post-race celebrations.

Harbour Watch, a son of Acclamation descended from the great Fall Aspen, won three races by wide margins for Richard Hannon snr in a period of around six weeks, culminating in an impressive victory in the Richmond Stakes. But unfortunately injury intervened, and that proved to be his final start.

He was retired to Tweenhills to cover his first mares at the age of four in 2013, and at an opening fee of £7,500 proved popular with breeders, who justifiably thought that he looked nailed on to produce bags of classy two-year-olds in his own image.

I suspect the decision made by Pyledriver’s breeders Roger Devlin and brothers Guy and Huw Leach, with their adviser the late Kevin Mercer, to send the Le Havre mare La Pyle to Harbour Watch for her first cover in 2016 was prompted by the hope that the sire was about to make a big splash with his first two-year-olds that year.

Alas, it wasn’t to be, as Harbour Watch endured a low-key freshman season, with only around a fifth of his runners gracing a winner’s enclosure and just the one – Tis Marvellous – scoring in stakes company. Admittedly, he was unlucky to be in the same peer group as Frankel, but as it turned out he was also overshadowed by the likes of Helmet, Mayson, Power, Sepoy and Sir Prancealot.

Harbour Watch: stood at Tweenhills before old injuries put an end to his stallion career Mark Cranham

Harbour Watch covered one last small book at a reduced fee of £6,000 in the wake of that first season with runners, resulting in a crop of nine foals born in 2018, and he was later stood down as a stallion due to his old injuries catching up with him.

Pyledriver’s breeders had much better luck, though. In fact, to be really frank, they have been jammy ever since they retired La Pyle, who hailed from a good family and won twice in her native France, but showed little ability after being imported to race in Britain and ended her career being well beaten over hurdles for Philip Hobbs.

Only months after she was put in foal to Harbour Watch, her then three-year-old half-brother Mont Ormel won the Grand Prix de Paris and was sold to race in Hong Kong as Helene Charisma, while her two-year-old full-sister Normandel finished second in the Prix d’Aumale. She would go on to win the Park Express Stakes at five.

Jammy they might have been, but full credit to connections for turning down the big-money offers that inevitably flooded in for La Pyle after those pedigree updates, and for standing by her first foal by a by-then unfashionable sire when he failed to receive an outside bid at the foal sales, and then putting him in training with William Muir themselves.

Redvers isn’t entirely shocked that his former charge Harbour Watch has managed to come up with a top-notcher like Pyledriver, who also won the Ascendant Stakes at two, King Edward VII Stakes and Great Voltigeur at three and Coronation Cup at four for earnings in excess of £1.8 million.

“He never reached his potential on a racecourse because of that career-ending injury he suffered at the end of his two-year-old season, when he fractured a hind cannon,” he says.

“Goodness knows what he could have achieved at three, as he was the highest rated two-year-old in the country at the time, and a big scopey horse. With that in mind it’s no surprise really that he’s managed to sire a top-class older horse.

“Of course Pyledriver is a major step up on what he had done up to this point, and it’s just fantastic for William Muir and Chris Grassick and their team, who have managed his career so well.”

As it turns out, Pyledriver is not the only reason why history might look more kindly upon Harbour Watch’s stud career than might have been thought at one point. He also supplied Hong Kong star Waikuku, dual Group 2 winner Baron Samedi and Listed scorers Brunch, Malakeh and Seaside Song.

“I suspect the problem with Harbour Watch was that he was a massively talented horse but ended up being quite fragile, and perhaps there’s also an element of brilliance but fragility in some of his stock,” continues Redvers. “However, in Pyledriver they’ve found a horse who’s got the brilliance and is also incredibly sound and durable, and extremely well managed.

“A lot of stallions never get the opportunity to reach their potential because of the fickle nature of the business, and on top of that Harbour Watch had the soundness issue during racing that he carried into his relatively short stud career, hence he sadly didn’t make old bones. But he’s done very well from a low base. Not many sires produce one as good as Pyledriver.”

Harbour Watch’s redemption tale might continue with his maternal grandchildren this season. His daughters have produced the unbeaten two-year-old colt Clearpoint (who, like his dam, was bred by Fiona Denniff, who really got a tune out of the sire, as she also bred and races Brunch); and Listed winner Honey Sweet, who could line up in the Oak Tree Stakes at Goodwood on Wednesday, as well as her half-brother Batal Dubai, an impressive winner on debut at Haydock for Roger and Harry Charlton this month.

Lezoo: star juvenile filly flying the flag for Tweenhills sire Zoustar Alan Crowhurst

Lezoo, trained by Ralph Beckett for Andrew Rosen and Marc Chan and already a Listed winner and Group 2 runner-up, is really flying the flag for Zoustar in the early days of his career as a sire in Europe.

It’s no secret that the son of Northern Meteor, who is a conveyor belt of top-class horses in Australia, where he will command a fee of $198,000 (£114,000/€134,000) this year, has been a little slow to fire with his first northern hemisphere runners, with three winners on the board so far. But Redvers is unperturbed, and for good reason.

“Zoustar is known in Australia as a sensational sire of three-year-olds, and gets plenty of decent backend two-year-olds, but he’s not a sire of early two-year-olds,” he says.

“When he was champion first-season sire down there, the only winner he had before Christmas was Sunlight, and we’re seeing a similar thing up here. I have no doubt that the trainers who are being patient with them are going to be richly rewarded.”

So Lezoo is something of an outlier by her sire in being so forward. It’s not hard to see why that might be the case, as she was bred by Chasemore Farm out of the early two-year-old Roger Sez, by the precocity influence Red Clubs, and she was prepped for the breeze-ups by Tally-Ho Stud, eventually selling for €110,000 at Arqana.

“This filly has slightly bucked the trend, in that she’s come through the breeze-ups and basically been thrown into Ralph's tutelage,” says Redvers. “I spoke to Ralph after Lezoo won, and he said he can’t think of a tougher two-year-old he’s trained. She loses three kilos when she runs and puts it straight back on, and can’t wait to go out and do it all over again.

“She’s got some of dad’s brilliance and some of her mum’s precocity, and you can add into the mix that Red Clubs’ line, going back to Red Ransom and Roberto, has worked very well with the sire in Australia too.”

Harbour Watch and Zoustar weren’t the only sires to spring a bit of a surprise in the stakes race action at Ascot on Saturday.

Just as we were getting used to Teofilo siring a string of top-class stayers, thanks to Melbourne Cup victors Cross Counter and Twilight Payment and fellow Group 1 winners Scope and Subjectivist, he has returned to his roots by throwing a top-class two-year-old in the mould of his early sons Parish Hall and Havana Gold, with Naval Power bolting up in the Pat Eddery Stakes.

It all just goes to show that it pays to be flexible in our thinking about sires, not to jump to conclusions and, most importantly of all perhaps, to always remember there are two sides to a pedigree.

Share your thoughts with other Good Morning Bloodstock readers by emailing gmb@racingpost.com

“The ground is fast and on softer ground we would be closer to the winner. It was his third run of the year and he’s not yet reached his top level,” says Torquator Tasso’s jockey Rene Piechulek in a run-down of the beaten horses in Saturday’s King George.

It’s the opening day of the Galway Festival and, fittingly for one of the most famous mixed cards in British and Irish racing, there are beautifully bred newcomers on both the Flat and National Hunt side.

Cairo is Aidan O’Brien’s sole entry in the seven-furlong juvenile maiden (6.10) that over the years has been farmed by Dermot Weld – who has likely odds-on favourite Tiverton this time – but has fallen to a few useful Ballydoyle raiders of late, including Innisfree and Jamaica.

Coolmore homebred Cairo is by top Kentucky sire Quality Road, source of 14 top-level winners including Abel Tasman, Bellafina and City Of Light, and is the second runner out of Cuff, a smart daughter of Galileo and Invincible Spirit’s Group 2-placed half-sister Massarra, after US winner River Redemption.

Cuff is a full-sister to stakes winners Blissful, Friendly, Gustav Klimt and Wonderfully, as well as St James’s Palace Stakes third Mars, and a half-sister to Italian Group 1 scorer Nayarra.

The Twelve Pins, meanwhile, is one of three runners for Willie Mullins in the bumper that concludes the action at Galway (8.20) and she is arguably the best bred for the job out of the trio.

The Beat Hollow filly was bred and is owned by Mullins’ wife Jackie, and she is out of her fine producer Sixhills, a Flat-winning daughter of Sabrehill from the family of high-class middle-distance performers and stayers Craigsteel, Invermark and Selino.

The mare has been represented by seven winners, four of whom have struck at the Galway Festival, three of them in the same Flat maiden – Blackstairmountain, a Grade 1 winner over hurdles and fences who also took third in the Galway Plate; Mt Leinster, a Grade 1-placed novice hurdler and useful chaser who also ran a close sixth in the Galway Hurdle; and Diamond Hill, who also took a maiden hurdle at the meeting and finished third in the Guinness Handicap Hurdle.

Sixhills’ other Galway Festival winner was Fugi Mountain, who scored in a bumper there six years ago.

For good measure another of her daughters, the Tramore bumper winner Bluemountainbeach, is the dam of Purple Mountain, who won a maiden hurdle at last year’s Galway Festival.

Diamond Hill and Mt Leinster are both by Beat Hollow, so are full-siblings to The Twelve Pins, who has the assistance of Jody Townend in the saddle this evening.

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Good Morning Bloodstock is our latest email newsletter. Martin Stevens, a doyen among bloodstock journalists, provides his take and insight on the biggest stories every morning from Monday to Friday