NOBLE MISSION can provide the feelgood story so coveted from Ascot officials by winning the Qipco Champion Stakes.

Those responsible for British Champions Day have this week been shuffled into a corner due to a rash of high-profile defections that has been exacerbated by a near-apocalyptic spell of weather.

While Ascot is entitled to feel a sense of misfortune, the debate should rightly continue over the position of Champions Day in the racing calendar.

There could, however, still be a happy ending. Champions Day has so far been best remembered for the exploits of the peerless Frankel, who won the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes and Champion Stakes in consecutive seasons.

How appropriate it would be, then, if his full brother, Noble Mission, ploughed through the mud to take gold in the Champion.

Lady Cecil's colt will, of course, have plenty of support from punters acting from the heart.

But with the rain continuing to fall, he rates an entirely sensible solution for those opposed to the estimable Cirrus Des Aigles, who won the race in 2011 but is now eight years old.

Noble Mission is no spring chicken at five, but his renaissance this season has been pretty startling.

The Khalid Abdullah-trained entire claimed four races on the spin from April to June, with subsequent Hardwicke Stakes winner Telescope twice on the receiving end of a battering at Sandown and at Chester.

He was successful twice at Group One level when victorious in Tatersalls Gold Cup at the Curragh and in the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud in France, which he was awarded after the winner Spiritjim subsequently tested positive for a banned substance.

Noble Mission adores competing in bog-like conditions and could feasibly have the field strung out from the outset under the trusty James Doyle.

His ample reserves of stamina could leave his rivals floundering in the Ascot mud and he can sign off his career on a winning note.