About the future horse racing in Europe

[cosmicway 1,252]

I have embarked on a fact finding mission concerning the economics of horse racing around Europe.

As the chelsea forum has friends from all countries, I hope that some of you can answer the questions I 'm going to ask.

In Europe the three countries with the longest horse racing tradition, staging a multitude of events, are the UK, France and Ireland.
So I believe that in those three countries the racing industry is doing well, or relatively well.
I am interested more in the other countries such as Spain, Benelux, Germany, Eastern Europe and the Balkan countries.

In Greece since football betting with fixed odds was introduced in the 90s, horse racing has been more or less sliding downwards over the years.
The popularity of football betting is immense and of course people do not have the money and the time to follow both football and racing.

So I wonder if this is the case in your country too.
Can this -or does this- lead to the end of horse racing ?
Are race courses closing down (like ours is danger of) or have your racing authorities succeeded in keeping things going and how ?

I would appreciate your contributions which will help further our understanding of matters relating to horse racing.

[cosmicway 1,252]

Nobody can help in this search ?
We have so many members from the smaller European countries.
Surely you can help !