In the third instalment of our 'horses for courses' series we're going to look at the stats for Sandown Lakeside (aka Betfair Park) in Melbourne.

The Lakeside track has a circumference of 1,857 metres and the straight of 407 metres generally means that all horses get their chance.

So how 'true' is the form at this track and what is the record of those horses that are in the market? Here are the stats (based on NSW TAB prices) for the 500+ races from 2006 to date:
Favourite 1% Profit on Turnover
2nd Fave -18% POT
3rd Fave -23% POT
4th Fave -20% POT

So -15% overall for the first four favourites which is marginally worse than the -13% across all tracks during this time, but not so great a differential as to warrant a definitive conclusion.

The statistics show that track experience at Sandown Lakeside is a small advantage. Horses that haven't started at the track previously lost 16% on turnover, whereas those that had already raced there lost 12%.

The experience of at least one start at the track has been an advantage for each of the three courses we have looked at so far.

At Moonee Valley there was a 12% POT improvement for horses that had course experience and at Rosehill it was 9%. Sandown Lakeside's 'experience factor' appears to be worth around 4% on turnover and it will be interesting to see if this trend continues throughout this series.

Following are the results for the different track conditions:
Good -15%
Dead -20%
Slow -16%
Heavy -4%

Nothing too definitive there because with just 66 races on heavy tracks it's a very small sample size.

There were no major standout stats in terms of distances, other than the 1400 and 1500 were a combined -24% POT.

Barriers are of little importance here as there is normally a good run to the first turn and horses can come from back in the field. In fact like many other tracks, punters over-rate the importance of inside barriers. At Lakeside barrier positions 1-8 lose 18% on turnover, whereas barriers 9 and above lose just 1%.

The best performing jockeys at Lakeside include four well-known names: Brad Rawller, Craig Newitt, Luke Nolen and Steven King.

However some prominent jockeys also feature on the worst performing list: Corey Brown, Chris Symons, Craig Williams, Danny Brereton, Damien Oliver, Dean Holland, Greg Childs and Peter Mertens.

The best performing Lakeside trainers include Lee Freedman, Mike Moroney, Mick Price, Peter Moody, Robbie Laing and Robert Smerdon.

The trainers whose horses are generally overbet and under the odds at Lakeside are Brian Mayfield-Smith, David Hayes, Danny O'Brien, John Hakes, Mick Kent and Robbie Griffiths.

Although the importance of experience at Sandown Lakeside is not as pronounced as at Moonee Valley or Rosehill, we can safely add this track to our 'horses for courses' list.