It's fine to have a goal.

But unfortunately there is a world of difference between having a goal and achieving it.

A large number of punters have poor discipline. That means they have no chance of succeeding long term. Invariably they will have $5 on a winner and $100 on a loser etc. etc.

Even with discipline there is no guarantee of success betting on horses for punters doing their own thing.

There are in my opinion a number of key ingredients, assuming one is disciplined.

1. Finding good horses to back.

2. Then not backing them when you shouldn't. "Pick the winner then back it" punters will be long term losers. Guaranteed. Because they have little or no understanding of the maths involved in betting. It is like the "Pick the winner then back it" punter I saw today at Sandown .... a guaranteed long term loser. Because there was just one bookmaker operating in the room where he placed the bet, he backed Permaiscuous with that bookie at $2.60 when it was $3.40 in the main betting ring. On that basis this punter is quite prepared to make a profit of $1.60 from each dollar he bets instead of $2.40 which is 50% extra!! Putting it bluntly, we can easily see where the cliched term mug punter comes from.

You must know at what odds you should back each horse and at what odds you should not back a horse. This can vary from horse to horse. It is just too simplistic to eliminate all bets under say $3.00 or $4.00 or whatever.

I note this forum is full of selection methods and elimination rules but very sparse on ideas of how to know when a selection should or should not be a bet based on its odds.

Because that is the ultimate skill ... being able to handicap is the key to winning long term ...

PS ... I'm not sure on what basis you could have been very confident about Racing To Win winning the Group 1 George Main Stakes. The gelding was jumping up in distance from 1300 metres to 1600 metres. Sure, it had won the Doncaster Handicap over 1600 metres, but its previous start was over 1500 metres, not 1300 metres. In its career it had never gone up in distance more than 200 metres from its previous start. In addition, Court's In Session beat Racing To Win when they met on the 26th. August. I thought the race was a bit of a trap race, and odds on Racing To Win didn't look like value to me. Left the race alone.