MELBOURNE - Leading Victorian trainer Peter Moody has Adelaide Cup plans for slow-maturing stayer Macedonian who won his second successive race of the spring in the A$125,000 Sandown Cup on Saturday.
The Zabeel 5-year-old was coming off a solid win in the Lavazza Long Black (2800m) at Flemington on MelbourneCup 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 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 at up to 3000m at Sandown before Saturday, went to Sydney and ran seventh to Herculian Prince in The Metropolitan (2400m) at Randwick before returning home and running fifth to Americain in the Geelong Cup (2406m) and winning the 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 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 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."
