When you pay your membership, enter a competition or settle your livery fees, you’re funding your riding club. But part of what keeps French equestrian sport and leisure afloat doesn’t come from riders like you. It comes from people betting on horse racing, many of whom have never set foot in a stable.
This system has a name: the Fonds Éperon. It distributes around €9.6 million (approximately £8.1 million) annually. And it depends on a revenue stream that shrinks year on year.
Where the money comes from
The Fonds Éperon has existed since 2005. Its funding doesn’t come from state budgets, federations, or rider subscriptions. It comes from a levy on horse-racing wagers.
The principle is long-established. Racing companies hold a monopoly on organising horse-racing bets. In return, a portion of wagered money flows back to the wider equine sector, those not involved in professional racing: sport, leisure, breeding, and working horses. Without knowing it, bettors are bankrolling the arenas and competitions where you ride on Sundays.
Most riders are unaware of this connection. Many see horse racing as a separate world with its own codes and systems. Financially, however, the two are inseparable.
What the fund actually supports
The Fonds Éperon doesn’t pay individuals. Instead, it co-finances collective projects, roughly a hundred each year:
- infrastructure and facilities at riding centres and competition venues;
- major events such as Equita Lyon and the Angers Horse Show;
- regional veterinary networks;
- sector structuring initiatives and international development;
- innovative projects benefiting sport, leisure and working horses.
The most significant allocation sits elsewhere. The Société Hippique Française (French Equestrian Society) organises breeding trials and selection competitions for young sport horses and ponies aged 4 to 6 years. It receives approximately €3.5 million (£2.95 million) of the €4.2 million (£3.54 million) in prize money it distributes annually. Since 2011, this revenue has covered nearly 90 per cent of its competition prize funds.
In other words: the competitions that identify and promote young French horses depend almost entirely on betting revenue.
- The proportion of budget dependent on external resources. Beyond 50 per cent, an organisation loses control of its future.
- The trend across five years, not a single year’s snapshot.
- The number of bettors, which predicts tomorrow’s revenue better than total wagers.
- Whether a replacement funding source has been identified, or not.
- The lag between a tax decision and its real impact on payments.
The numbers turn downward
France’s 2025 national gaming authority report tells the story. Horse-racing wagers reached €6.44 billion (£5.43 billion), down 3.3 per cent. The previous year had been €6.64 billion (£5.60 billion), already a 2.6 per cent decline. The peak occurred in 2023 at €6.84 billion (£5.77 billion).
The number of bettors is falling faster than the amounts wagered: 3.3 million in 2025, compared with 3.5 million a year earlier. Over a decade, this population has halved. The remaining bettors wager larger sums, temporarily masking the decline, but this effect weakens.
Payments to the equine sector follow the same trajectory. They fell from €837 million (£706 million) in 2024 to €802 million (£677 million) in 2025. A loss of €35 million (£29.5 million) in a single year, nearly four times the entire Fonds Éperon budget.
Be careful not to confuse the levels. These €35 million lost affect the entire racing sector, not just the sport and leisure fund. But they flow from the same tap. When the tap runs slower, all the connected pipes receive less.
The cause is well known. Online sports betting captures younger generations with aggressive marketing. The PMU’s market share fell to 11.7 per cent in 2025, down from 13.2 per cent two years earlier.
Why the collapse could be sudden
A 3 per cent annual decline allows time to adapt. A political decision does not.
On 7 November 2024, France Galop and the Société d’encouragement à l’élevage du cheval français (French Horse Breeding Association) cancelled or postponed races. An unprecedented strike, protesting a proposed tax increase on horse-racing wagers in the 2025 budget. For several weeks, nobody knew if the measure would pass, nor what would remain of payments to the sector.
That’s the real risk. It isn’t the slow decline in wagers, which everyone sees coming. It’s that a budget line voted in Paris over a few days determines next year’s funding for young-horse competitions. The affected organisations have no influence over this decision, and no backup funding ready.
What this means for you
In the short term, nothing visible. Effects from this type of funding surface over three to five years, gradually.
Watch instead for these measurable signals:
- prize money amounts in young-horse competitions, which move before anything else;
- the number of competitions offered near you in a season;
- maintenance work delayed at clubs and competition venues, often co-funded;
- prices for young French horses at sale, linked to their promotion through breeding competitions.
If you compete, you should follow this issue as closely as the equestrian sports calendar. Your discipline’s funding partly depends on what happens on the racecourse.
Sources: 2025 national gaming authority report, Fonds Éperon, Société Hippique Française, IFCE Equipédia, French Senate report on the equine sector.
