WILLIE Mullins walked straight and talked straight after the Belmont Gold Cup Invitational.

“It was over at the break. I’m sorry about that,” Mullins said after walking straight toward jockey Javier Castellano, who guided Wicklow Brave to be fourth in the two-mile contest last Friday. Castellano, taken aback for a moment, looked up at Mullins, “That’s okay. That’s okay.”

Yes, Mullins’ raid of the two-mile stakes race was over before it started as Wicklow Brave and stablemate Clondaw Warrior broke tardily in the $400,000 stakes.

“You can’t recover from that,” Mullins said, as he walked toward John Velazquez, who rode Clondaw Warrior, to have the same conversation.

Irish-bred Red Cardinal, by Montjeu, capitalised on the opportunity, relaxing well off a rapid pace set by Roman Approval before navigating a clear run around rivals to reach contention at the head of the stretch.

Castellano engineered a clear trip through horses on Clondaw Warrior but paid the price for the start as Red Cardinal, St Michel and Now We Can rallied. Red Cardinal, under left-handed whip by jockey Eduardo Pedroza, prevailed by a neck over British invader St Michel and French raider Now We Can. Europeans swept the first four places.

Purchased out of David Simcock’s yard last summer and now based in Germany with Andreas Wöhler, Red Cardinal won for the fifth time in his career and second since joining Wöhler.

“This is a nice race if everything goes right coming over and everything went right,” Wöhler said. “The ground was firm, but not too firm.”

Wöhler won the Melbourne Cup in 2014 for Red Cardinal’s owners, the Australian Bloodstock syndicate. As for this year’s plan, if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it.

“There aren’t that many chances for him in Germany, he needs to travel, his main target is a long way away,” Wöhler said, between drags of a cigarette outside the Belmont Park grandstand.

“We’ve experienced it once, three years ago so we thought we would try do it again. It’s unbelievable, you can’t describe it, the whole atmosphere, amazing hype coming up to the race, the race itself, the nation lifts the race. He’s the perfect horse for it. The perfect horse.”