Noble Mission emulated his illustrious full brother Frankel when landing an emotional victory in the Qipco Champion Stakes at Ascot.

The five-year-old, trained by Lady Cecil, has lived in the shadow of Frankel all his career but enjoyed his finest hour as he made all of the running in this Group One showpiece.

Noble Mission (7-1) pulled out all the stops for James Doyle to hold off Al Kazeem by a neck after a terrific tussle, while Free Eagle stayed on strongly for third place, a length and a quarter behind.

Frankel ended his racing days with victory in this race two years ago, when trained by the late Henry Cecil.

Noble Mission has enjoyed a terrific season as a five-year-old, during which time he has now won three Group One races, with a switch to front-running tactics having worked the oracle.

Quirky in his younger days, he is very much a reformed character and showed he is extremely genuine when responding to Doyle's urgings as failed stallion Al Kazeem loomed large in the straight.

Both horses gave everything, but it was Noble Mission who stuck his head out to record a fairytale triumph.

Cirrus Des Aigles, winner of this race in 2011 and runner-up in the 2012 and 2013 runnings, could not repeat those efforts after threatening briefly in the straight.

Doyle said of Noble Mission: "This fellow is really unbelievable. He was very tough. I thought Al Kazeem had the better of us at one point but, luckily, we saved enough inside the final half a furlong. He's very versatile and the family has improved with age. It's a great team effort."

Teddy Grimthorpe, racing manager for owner Khalid Abdullah, added: "It's a fairytale, it really is."

Lady Cecil said: "James gave him a great ride as he really had to dig deep. He's just enjoying it so much these days - he loves his racing. It's a great team effort, I'm so lucky."

Trainer Roger Charlton could not have been prouder of Al Kazeem, who was beaten under six lengths in the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe at Longchamp.

He said: "He was 100-1 on the exchanges at the start of the week and I thought that was an insult. He didn't get the credit for the Arc run, and he's run as well as he ever has today.

"I thought after the Arc he'd be a Cup horse for next year, but he can go a mile and a quarter or a mile and a half. He'll have entries for Hong Kong and Dubai, and we'll see. It shows they can come back."

Dermot Weld was similarly thrilled with Free Eagle, who will not run again this autumn.

He said: "He's a magnificent horse and it's a pleasure to train him. He just wasn't at his best on that ground, but his sheer ability kept him there. It was a fantastic race. There's a lot to look forward to and I'd imagine I'd start him off in the Tattersalls Gold Cup at the Curragh."

As for Noble Mission, plans remain fluid. Grimthorpe added: "I don't know what he'll do now. I'd have said that was it for the year, but he could race on. We'll see, that decision is up to the Prince."