Carry The Flag headed the field for the juvenile five-furlong sprint on the final day of Royal Ascot, putting Aidan O'Brien back at the centre of a meeting that can still change hands on the last afternoon. The colt arrived with form behind Great Barrier Reef, who had already won the Coventry Stakes earlier in the week, and he was among the runners being watched as the card turned toward its closing races.
That is why the search for Royal Ascot was still running hot on Saturday. O'Brien had been described as having a big chance to move toward the trainers' trophy, and he also had Amadeus Mozart entered in the Golden Gates Stakes Handicap at 5.35, another race that could feed into the standings. The meeting had already thrown up results that mattered to the ledger, including Great Barrier Reef's Coventry win and the Friday evening success with Bacio that gave Wesley Ward three runners for the day.
The juvenile sprint brought together several angles at once. Joseph O'Brien had Star Prospect in the race after the colt had beaten Carry The Flag into second at the Curragh in April when both made their racecourse debuts. Orthodox, Flight Signal and Where Love Lives were unbeaten home-trained contenders prominent in the betting, while Kevin Phillipart de Foy had Force Noir in the field after a recent transfer from Amo Racing's main Irish stable. It was the kind of race where reputation, freshness and a little memory from earlier in the spring all collided in a single five-furlong dash.
O'Brien's own standing at Royal Ascot gave the final day extra weight, but it also framed the gap in his record. He has had success across the meeting, yet his past return in this race has not matched the dominance he has shown in some other events, and that left room for rivals to matter right to the end. Across the rest of the card, the same pattern held: Joseph O'Brien had won two of the last three runnings of the Queen Alex, Willie Mullins had saddled five winners at Royal Ascot since 2012, and the Saturday programme still offered chances for those numbers to move again.
So the final day was less about one horse than about whether O'Brien could turn promise into a stronger grip on the trainers' trophy before the meeting closed. Carry The Flag had the kind of profile that can tilt that race, but the last word belonged to the afternoon itself, with the sprint, the Golden Gates Stakes Handicap and the remaining races all feeding the same question: whether the lead he sought would be built on one timely winner or left hanging until the numbers were final.
