Leading trainer Peter Moody has Adelaide Cup plans for slow-maturing stayer Macedonian who won his second successive race of the spring in the $125,000 Sandown Cup.The Zabeel five-year-old was coming off a solid win in the Lavazza Long Black (2800m) at Flemington on Melbourne Cup Day and was running over 3200m for the first time in a new race held over the Sandown steeplechase course.Ridden by stable jockey Luke Nolen, Macedonian was backed from $4.20 to start a $3.80 favourite and came with a w

Leading trainer Peter Moody has Adelaide Cup plans for slow-maturing stayer Macedonian who won his second successive race of the spring in the $125,000 Sandown Cup.

The Zabeel five-year-old was coming off a solid win in the Lavazza Long Black (2800m) at Flemington on Melbourne Cup Day and was running over 3200m for the first time in a new race held over the Sandown steeplechase course.

Ridden by stable jockey Luke Nolen, Macedonian was backed from $4.20 to start a $3.80 favourite and came with a well-timed run to score by 2-1/4 lengths from imported galloper Above Average ($4.60) with Mourayan ($19) a short-neck away third.

"It was a good, tough staying effort. He's come good at the back end of the season," Moody said.

The gelding, a winner up to 3000m at Sandown before Saturday, went to Sydney and ran seventh to Herculian Prince in Group One The Metropolitan (2400m) at Randwick before returning home and running fifth to Americain in the Group Three Geelong Cup (2406m) and winning Lavazza Long Black.

"His Metrop run was terrific in bad ground, Geelong was tremendous with a hard run and he's won his last two so we'll raise the bar and probably head to the Adelaide Cup in March now," Moody said.

Macedonian is raced by the Fairway Thoroughbreds Syndicate, managed by John Camilleri, and has won five of 18 starts.

"We always had a bit more expectation to be honest but he has taken a long while to develop and I think we'll probably adopt the European mould and only have six or seven runs a year and not run below a mile-and-a-quarter (2000m) for the rest of his career," Moody said.

"We'll just keep him ticking for the races that he's going to be suited in."

Moody and Nolen had a day out at Sandown winning three of the first four races, starting with Snitzel three-year-old filly Zelsnitz leading all-the-way to upset odds-on favourite Palomares in the Listed Race-Tech Stakes (1400m).

Macedonian was the middle pin of a winning treble in successive races for the Moody-Nolen combination with the brilliant Anabaa four-year-old mare Avenue leading throughout in the Listed Kevin Heffernan Stakes (1300m) to hold out Dubleanny.