Mount Atlas, trained by Andrew Balding and ridden by PJ McDonald, powered home in the Long Distance Cup at odds of 33-1.

The jockey wore the famous black and gold colours which the great Mill Reef carried when winning the Epsom Derby, The Eclipse, the King George & Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot and the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe in the early 1970s.

Many members of the Newbury-based club - whose president is Andrew's sister and TV presenter Clare Balding - cheered home Mount Atlas, who beat Aiden O'Brien's Queenstown by three quarters of a length, with the 7/4 favourite and St Leger winner Highwayman, trained by Joseph O'Brien, the same distance behind in third.

His win caps a brilliant season for Mount Atlas, who has not finished outside the top three in any of his six races this year. It was also his third Ascot win.

The West Berkshire trainer commented: “He’s a very talented horse; obviously we were just taking a chance on the two miles, but he loves Ascot and PJ gave him an absolutely brilliant ride.

“I’m so thrilled and so appropriate in those (Mill Reef) colours as well. I’m just sorry my mother isn’t here – she’s gone to watch a hockey match, she’d have loved that because she bred him.”

McDonald said: “You’ve got to enjoy days like this. Andrew and the whole team at Park House have been so good to me this last two or three years and that is the best way I can pay them back, a Group One winner on Champions Day when the team really needs the prize-money."

Balding is battling out with Aiden O'Brien to become the 2026 British champion trainer, but the Irish maestro is favourite to lift the title at the end of the year. Having saddled British Champions Fillies & Mares winner Minnie Hauk - earning £283,550 - the Irish trainer was £82,494 ahead at the end of the meeting.

And he has the ante-post favourite Noble Exhibit for next Saturday's William Hill Futurity Stakes at Doncaster which is worth £155,952 to the winner.

Balding had the even-money favourite Kalpana in the Fillies & Mares Stakes, but the King George VI And Queen Elizabeth Stakes winner could only finish seventh on his return to Ascot.

John and Thady Gosden’s Ombudsman exacted revenge on French raider Calandagan to win the Qatar Racing Champion Stakes; reversing last year's first and second placings.

Ombudsman was one of three winners for William Buick, along with Charlie Appleby's Talk Of New York (3/1) and the Gosdens' Fifth Column (22/1).

Saturday's attendance was 32,140, slightly up on last year's 31,257, and just shy of the record 32,348 for the day in 2012.