[Sven2]

End of 'Luck' and Racing's Future

By JIM SQUIRES
March 17, 2012, 10:45 am

As has happened many times, a dead horse has set back the hopes of thoroughbred racing of ever again becoming a major sport.

This time, it was a movie horse that flipped over backward at Santa Anita last week before the filming of the HBO series "Luck," a marvelous character study of the industry that some optimists hoped would help attract new people to the sport.

These same aspirations have been dashed repeatedly in recent years when horses competing in the Breeders' Cup and in Triple Crown races broke down and had to be euthanized before television audiences considerably larger than the half-million people who were still watching "Luck" after seven episodes.

The show was canceled Wednesday after a third horse died during production, but "Luck" was probably imperiled anyway because the writing and production genius of David Milch was lost on most of its audience.

As usual in the wake of a highly publicized death of a racehorse, the sport's critics are gloating while the leaderless industry hunkers down, thankful that "Luck," too, has broken down before it could do more image damage. Frank Stronach, the owner of Santa Anita and one of the world's leading breeders, said he planned to meet with the show's producers in an effort to influence a more appealing presentation of his businesses.

Strong doses of reality do not go down easy. But the truth is, racing has owners a lot worse than the character Ace Bernstein, trainers even more irascible and uncommunicative than Turo Escalante and bettors just as appalling as the Forays. These were our people, like it our not, and expecting Milch to sugarcoat it is as ridiculous as believing competitive athletes won't get injured before your eyes or that you can be around animals for a long time without watching one of them die. When a racecar driver is killed in public, it only draws a bigger crowd. When a horse dies in the hands of a human, it drives people away. I know a woman who quit watching "Luck" after the first episode because it showed a horse that broke down.

As any horseman knows, sometimes a scared horse flips over backward and hits its head on the ground. It has nothing to do with incompetent handling or inhumane treatment. Sometimes horses do it on their own — not out of fear, but while playing or racing with one another.

If the future of horse racing depends on the prevention of fractured skulls and broken leg bones, racing might as well shut down today. The fact is, the thoroughbred racing industry is not going to have any luck or much of a future until it quits turning a blind eye to its major problem — drugs. If two other horses had not already broken down during the filming of "Luck," a filly's flipping over on the way back to its stall would not have halted production. Both were put down after performing on the track in racing scenes, not full-fledged races but the shorter sprints used to stitch a movie race together. And both injuries were because of bones no longer capable of the stress they had just endured.

On the day "Luck" was canceled, the industry was again ballyhooing the return of "the sale horse" and the extraordinary profits connected with $500,000 and $800,000 prices being paid for horses at a Florida 2-year-old in training auction. Barely 24 months old and younger, these horses invariably had earned their value by running an eighth of a mile in 10 1/2 seconds or less, or a quarter-mile in 20 seconds and change. They did this after weeks of training for that one run down the track at speeds and levels of stress never again required for a successful racing career.

As is routine, some of them had probably already been inducted into a regimen of a diuretic and performance-enhancing drug known to leach calcium out their bones every time it is administered, even though a horse's bones do not mature until age 6.

Because of unsoundness, Animal Kingdom, the winner of the 2011 Derby, has run only one allowance race since, and this week he was benched again for at least three months while he recovers from a stress fracture. Already this year some of the most promising young aspirants for the 2012 Triple Crown have been sidelined by stress fractures. And there by the wayside along with them are all the reform efforts to curtail the industry's obsession with speed.

It is a shame that Milch, a knowledgeable horse owner who loves the game, and the impressive cadre of expert advisers he had assembled, didn't get far enough along to deal with the drug issue, along with a few other horror stories that need telling. Then there would be less mystery about why our retired racehorses can't even stand the stress of a short movie run and a greater understanding of why things need to be changed.

from: NYT Rail Racing Blog
http://therail.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/17/end-of-luck-and-racings-future/

[Sven2]

Something bigger than wins and losses

"Luck" — Episode Eight review (excerpts)
By Christopher Peck

"But while my lovable degenerates had little to do, just their presence led me to sigh regretfully. Hanging out with these gambling nobodies was one of the most enjoyable parts of the viewing experience, and made "Luck" an even more uniquely vivid and sprawling show. Large tapestry-like ensembles seem par for the course for HBO dramas, and on those other casts they had characters that were connected by tenuous, bureaucratic threads. But for once, an optimism pervaded on "Luck," the idea that although the fabric that held them together could rip at the seams, at any time, it wouldn't tear them apart. These people weren't just connected by a sport, they were bonded by a fondness, an unspoken love. In the end, some of the resisters like Escalante, and maybe even those who eluded the luster like Ace, allowed the forces that be to reign them in and reign over them.

The title references the cruel nature of chance, by the essence of "Luck," was actually the hope that faith in something bigger than wins and losses provides. Maybe all the rock bottoms and pain were just progress. Not since "Lost" can I remember a TV show inspiring me to reexamine my own beliefs in people and in powers beyond my control. Even if cynicism is trendy right now, and the depictions of a decaying culture are in high demand, I'm glad that even for nine episodes I was reminded that it doesn't have to be that way. I'm electing not to analyze what it means that a show with such values couldn't survive. Why would a show where redemption was possible see an untimely end, when shows about the immovable nature of greed and corruption (i.e "The Sopranos") thrive? Perhaps it is just the nature of the beast, and "Luck" had nothing to do with it.

While I'll mourn the lives of horses lost, I will also grieve for the loss of a young show, with so much potential. Though it felt like a mad dash for the finish line at times, glossing over certain characters and outstanding storylines, this was an appropriately roaring crescendo to the hallelujah chorus I've been basking in for eight weeks. For making me gasp at the peaks and ponder the valleys, I look ahead to the sunset admiring the beauty that is (not was, yet), almost blissfully unaware. The finale will be the dusk, the curtain on this brilliantly rendered landscape of the horse racing world, but for now I'll just be mesmerized and grateful just to be witnessing it."

from:
http://blastmagazine.com/the-magazine/entertainment/tv/luck-episode-eight-review/

[Sven2]

The PETA Distortion: How Luck's Cancellation Was Far from Ethical

by Ray Paulick | 03.21.2012 | 7:40am

Nothing is going to bring back the HBO series LUCK after the decision by producers last week to stop production on the second season and effectively cancel the series after season one. And nothing is going to bring back the three ex-racehorses who had found second careers as equine actors on LUCK but that suffered unusual, sad deaths. Those deaths – one in 2010, another in 2011, and the most recent one week ago – led HBO to cancel the series, though speculation is rife that declining viewership during season one was the real reason the plug was pulled on the horse racing series written by Thoroughbred owner David Milch and filmed at Santa Anita Park under the direction of Michael Mann.

Despite the finality of what happened, I can't in good conscience allow the radical animal rights group PETA – and the journalists who faithfully report whatever the agenda-driven organization tells them – to have the last word on the circumstances surrounding the deaths of the three horses over the two-year period that LUCK was being filmed.

Known as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, PETA was anything but ethical in how it spread lies about the equine accidents that plagued LUCK.


PETA spoon-fed stories to sympathetic reporters like Vickery Eckhoff, who wrote a damning article based on lies or wildly off-base assumptions from a PETA press release for Forbes.com ("LUCK Ran Old, Unfit, Drugged Horses, Says Necropsy Report"). Others picked up on the same story, and it wasn't until the news cycle was several days old that PETA's outrageous claims of LUCK using unfit, sore, drugged horses was brought into question by anyone.

By then, however, the lies had been repeated often enough that people believed them.

That's the way PETA operates, to get ahead of stories and promote their agenda through a sympathetic media with lies or assumptions and unnamed "whistleblowers" and so-called experts whose names they won't reveal.

The production of LUCK was supervised by the American Humane Association, whose film and television unit has been overseeing movie and TV sets using animals for more than 70 years. There were two veterinarians involved in examining and caring for the horses, Dr. Heidi Agnic, a racetrack practitioner hired through the AHA and HBO, and an independent veterinarian, Dr. Gary Beck, who has worked for the California Horse Racing Board. The AHA required X-rays of all the horses used in LUCK (there were approximately 45), prohibited the use of any drugs in the horses (including anti-inflammatories and tranquilizers) and conducted random drug testing, and required daily veterinary inspections. They even weighed the horses on a regular basis. Horse racing scenes being filmed were limited to three-eighths of a mile or less. Horses could be used twice a day. Everyone involved in handling the horses was both qualified to do so and licensed by the California Horse Racing Board.

Despite those precautions, as many horse owners and trainers have learned through their own experiences, accidents can and did, unfortunately, happen during the filming of LUCK.

-In May 2010, jockey David Neusch had pulled up a horse, Outlaw Yodeler, that had been in a scene and was jogging him back to the barn. The horse was playfully rooting, or pulling its head up and down, and tripped on its own feet, falling onto its right shoulder. The impact shattered its humerus. Following the accident, Dr. Agnic administered several medications to relieve pain, tranquilize the horse and reduce swelling in the event the injury was treatable. It was not the kind of fracture that can be treated, however, and Outlaw Yodeler was euthanized.

-A year later, during filming of LUCK, a second horse, Marc's Shadow, suffered a catastrophic fracture of its upper leg bone, or radius. The fracture was so severe that euthanasia was conducted immediately.

-Last week, as a horse was being walked in the stable area by what LUCK writer John Perrotta said was an experienced groom, the horse slipped on a dirt pathway, reared, and fell backwards. It landed on its poll, or soft area on the head where many nerve endings gather. It's an injury that often punctures the carotid artery, and requires euthanasia.

Dr. Susan Stover, a veterinarian at the University of California-Davis who has been in charge of the horse racing industry's necropsy program that looks at every fatality at a licensed racetrack in the state, described the two leg fractures as "atypical" among the many she has seen over the years.

"Fractures occur in very consistent locations because they often happen in pre-existing injuries," Stover told the Paulick Report. "They are like occupational injuries. These two particular fractures are not typical. They would be rare fractures in racehorses."

The necropsy reports of the first two horses that died were acquired by PETA through Freedom of Information Act requests and leaked to the press. Among the findings were that the horses had some degree of arthritis, which did not surprise Stover.

"I would concur that it is not uncommon to have some arthritis or some lesions in their legs," she said. "I would imagine that there are racehorses that have very clean joints, but we're probably not going to see them (in a necropsy)."

The necropsy report for Outlaw Yodeler, the horse that died in 2010, stated the presence of four drugs: Phenylbutazone and Banamine (flunixin), which are non-steroidal anti-inflammatories; Sol-U Delta Cortef, a fast-acting corticosteroid used to combat shock; and the sedative/analgesic Torbugesic (butorphanol).

The drugs were administered by Dr. Agnic to treat the stricken horse, and multiple racetrack veterinarians contacted by the Paulick Report confirmed that combination of drugs would be very typical in treating a horse that had just suffered a severe injury.

But PETA seized on the drug finding in the necropsy report to sell its story to a sympathetic media and for a sensationalized letter to the Los Angeles District Attorney, signed by its in-house attorney, Lindsay Waskey, in which it called for a criminal investigation of Dr. Agnic, writer Milch, and trainer Matthew Chew, who trained the horses used in the filming of LUCK.

"The astonishing array of powerful pharmaceutical drugs administered to Outlaw Yodeler before his injury," the letter reads, "suggests that Agnic was well aware that he was suffering from severe pain and inflammation and knew, or should have known, that the medication may cause Outlaw Yodeler to have a difficult time being able to recognize and respond to pain that would normally be a signal to a horse to slow down, pull up, or in some way indicated that he is injured."

This outrageous lie by Laskey is the "smoking gun" that allowed PETA to enlist a sympathetic media, which didn't know to ask whether it's possible those drugs were given to the horse after he was injured. Never mind the facts: this lie helped complete the story.

Laskey, when reached at the PETA office in Washington, D.C., refused to talk to the Paulick Report about the letter, specifically what knowledge PETA had that Outlaw Yodeler was given "powerful pharmaceutical drugs" before he was injured.

"I'll have to have a media person call you," she said. "I can't talk to you about it. That's not the way we do things around here."

Instead, we received a call from PETA vice president Kathy Guillermo, who said PETA "made the assumption" the drug cocktail was given before the horse was hurt rather than after it suffered the freak injury.

"There is a possibility one of the drugs was given afterwards," Guillermo said. "The District Attorney or the Pasadena Humane Society would have to find out when everything was administered. But that's what we were told by the vets we discussed it with. It's fair to say that's what we heard. I believe and was advised that the indication on the necropsy report was that the horses were running on those drugs and I believe that to be the case, and I was told that by six people on the set."

PETA accomplished its mission. It helped end the production of LUCK. It wants to end the use of animals for entertainment.

What becomes of those 45 horses who found second careers is anyone's guess. It's not something Guillermo or anyone at PETA cares about. According to its latest IRS Form 990, PETA is an organization that spends $7.5 million on its own salaries each year and less than $1 million supporting animal welfare organizations.

It will move on to its next subject, employ the same tactics, and find a sympathetic media to help carry out its mission. PETA is very good at what it does. Just not very ethical.

from:
http://www.paulickreport.com/news/ray-s-paddock/the-peta-distortion-how-luck-s-cancellation-was-far-from-ethical/

[Sven2]

The Vulture Transcript: Michael Mann and David Milch Open Up About the Cancellation of Luck

By Matt Zoller Seitz

(...)What were your reactions when you heard that a third horse had a fatal accident and had to be euthanized?

Michael Mann: It's a sinking feeling. And the first thing you need to ask is, you know, what happened? It's been reported that the horse was being led by a groom, he was being walked back to his stall, [he] was frazzled by something, reared back and lost his footing and hit his head when he fell, and that resulted in heavy bleeding.

David Milch: There was a terrible ordinariness to what happened to that horse. And it's in the rhythm and texture of life as lived at the track that those things happen. The sickening feeling that comes to you when you hear [about] something like that [comes from] knowing that what is going to attach itself to that fact isn't properly germane to it at all. And I'm sure that the feeling [that] came very quickly to Michael, the way that it did to me, was the foreknowledge of what was about to ensue.

There had been two previous horse deaths during the making of season one. Did you originally think that you would be able to resume production after the suspension that followed the third death, as you had after the first two? And if so, did it have you thinking of any changes you could make to lessen the chances of it happening a fourth time?

Mann: No. For both of us who work in media, we understand the reality of it, and there's certain physics. I mean, three horses is three too many, and when this third one went ... It's a very common act, to have died. You know, you knew that this was unsustainable, that the fact of it is just going to make it ... I don't know if we could individually articulate it. You felt sort of the resounding sense of, you know, "This can't work." It's like trying to negotiate with gravity. Because of the media attention as well as the fact of it, it just becomes an impossibility.

Milch: To answer your question directly, Matt, there was absolutely nothing that we thought of doing differently in the aftermath of that third incident. You would have to not lead a horse from its barn to the racetracks. You would interfere with the most fundamental processes of a horse's life in order to preclude that possibility.
Mann: A groom has the horse on a tether and in a stable area, behind the track where there are I don't know how many hundreds of horses led by grooms every day. And whether it's a rabbit or whatever, the horse startles. And so in terms of things we've done differently, to amplify what David's talking about, there's nothing ... We had the strictest protocols in place anywhere in the world in terms of how these horses were cared for: the tests that they were put through, how they'd be allowed to work for us. No racetrack has stricter protocols than [the ones] we imposed in our care of the horses — and, by the way, by people whose entire life is about caring for horses. If you spend your life caring for horses, it's not because you don't like horses. It's because you love horses. That's why you do it.

Could you respond to accusations by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and other groups that the horses used on Luck were too unhealthy, or too old to have been subjected to the rigors of weekly TV production? That they were sometimes pushed too hard, or that they were doped up to make it through production and hit deadlines?

Mann: It's not true. We adhered strictly to [Arabian Horse Association] guidelines. The horses we selected were thoroughbreds who were slow and sturdy, meaning that if they were too fast, then they weren't were right for us. And if these horses who were probably — David can speak to this better than I can — who were a little beyond their racing life ... A lot of these horses, by the way, if they weren't being cared for by us, the way they were being cared for would [have been] rather poor.

Milch: Just to pursue this a little bit, I was embarrassed for PETA when I read some of their statements, [of ] the savage ignorance of the realities of what we were doing ... They talked about 5-year olds being too old to race. A 5-year-old is in the absolute prime of his racing life! They [said] that the horses were found to have been medicated at necropsy [Editor's note: an autopsy performed on an animal]. Well, of course they were [found to have been] medicated at necropsy. They'd been medicated in the aftermath of being injured! This was beyond irresponsibility, the distortion that took place in order to make those accusations.

David, you're a longtime racing aficionado and a horse owner, and Michael, I know you used horses during the production of The Last of the Mohicans. How have you both responded to news articles and editorials suggesting that it's not worth risking the lives of horses to make art — or for that matter, that racing itself is cruel and ought to be banned?

Mann: I don't want to speak to whether racing is cruel or not or ought to be banned. There was a good piece in the New York Times that seemed accurate. The Huffington Post had something on March 17 that was fairly accurate. There's been a lot of press things in the last day or two about seventeen horses dying at Aqueduct since the beginning of this year. By the way, we had 25,000 horse runs on our show, and when we say [we shot] a "race," we run that horse for about a quarter of the track. Then that horse must rest for five minutes. This is the mandated call that we adhere to. And then a horse could run another quarter and rest and run another quarter, and then he's done for the day. We had one horse who broke down on the 2,500th horse run. [The first fatality occurred] when the horse in front of him slowed to a light gallop or cantor and threw a shoe, and the shoe hit the horse behind him in the chest, causing him to stumble and then roll over. And then we tried for about an hour and a half to rouse that horse until we realized that the horse had broken his shoulder. That's not to say that three horses dying is just part of the reality of making of a show. Three horses dying is three horses too many. David, do you wanna answer that?

Milch: I would just say that you're coming up against certain deep, fundamental biological truths: that any living thing is subject to the laws of mortality, and that there was nothing that was done with any of these horses that was unnatural, nothing that was other than what they had evolved to do. [In claiming otherwise], there's a kind of moral and emotional fastidiousness that is entailed, which at a certain point becomes absurd. Organic matter depends upon the appropriation and consumption of other organic matter. There are just truths that obtain whether we find them pleasant or not. The kind of flinching from any form of art or experience that PETA seems to advocate is ultimately life-hating.

One of the strains of criticism, and this is a very specific one, is not that it is immoral to use horses for entertainment per se, but that this specific show, which contains one or two races in every single episode, was qualitatively different from other entertainment that uses horses. We're not talking about, you know, a stand-alone Western.

Mann: It's different in the sense that our show happens to be about racehorses. The differences between a racehorse, or a quarter horse, or a warhorse or any other kind of horse are [substantial].

How so?
Mann: Well, [racehorses] are more delicate, and they're more spirited. They wanna go. They wanna race. They want to run. And Dave knows a lot more about how thoroughbred racehorses are bred than I do.
Milch: It's in their nature, Matt, and it fulfills the deepest movements of their spirit. To say that these animals are [being] subjected to something unnatural ... You know, it's embarrassingly stupid.

How much of the show had been shot when the plug got pulled?
Mann: We'd shot the first episode of the second season. We were into the first few days of the second episode.

Will we ever see that episode?
Mann: The first episode? Possibly, we're not sure.

The title of the show was Luck. Every subplot and scene was to some degree about characters responding to sudden shifts in fortune and inexplicable events and random tragedy. Has this series of events, climaxing in cancellation, made either of you look at the show's themes in a new or different light?

Milch: I think that it's all part of it, isn't it, Matt?

Mann:  There are some accusations that were made about the care of the horses, as David said, [that are] irresponsible, wholesale fabrications. The people who were involved in the care of these horses, the trainers and everybody, are devastated by accusations as well as [by] the cancellation. We have a lot of working men and women who are not called "Hollywood," whatever that means. They're carpenters, they're camera assistants, they're prop men, they're nice folks, they're good hardworking people who loved the show, loved being on the show, [were] thrilled to be part of the crew, loved the horses, and were absolutely heartbroken at each one of these events, and heartbroken at the show having to be canceled, and are undergoing hardship, and some of them are on the street. And that's really where a lot of our attention has gone.

[Sven2]

David, this is your third HBO drama after Deadwood and John From Cincinnati to be canceled before its full arc could be played out. In at least two of those cases, Deadwood and Luck, there were external forces at play, apart from ratings or audience response. What, if anything does the gambler-philosopher in you make of all that?

Milch: Well ... [Laughs.] Next hand!

After the pilot there were reports of rancor, followed by a working arrangement that gave you, David, control of the writing, and you, Michael, control of the filmmaking. Is this an accurate description? And if so, how did that collaboration work?

Mann: I've always felt that — full disclosure and candor up front — that's the way you do things, and that's the way of a successful product, and that's the way you add a successful outcome to an artistic endeavor. And we talked about it, if I'm gonna direct this [pilot], here's how I'm gonna do it, and everybody signed on, and that's what we did. After [I shot the pilot], I showed it to David. After we saw the pilot — and we both liked the pilot a lot — the two of us were together in my office, and I said, "Okay, looking forward to the series, and to where I'm not the director [anymore] but we're partners as co-executive producers, how should we work together?" And David said, "Shame on us if we can't figure out a way to work together, because I like what you do, you like what I do." And so that's when we decided that, as an understanding between the two of us, that David has to be the captain of the show. David has to be the captain of the show, and of everything having to do with the writing. Period. I was captain of the show for the telling of the stories and so on, for [hiring] directors and casting the guest stars and the new characters, for the editing and the mixing, the music selection — all of that other stuff that had to do with the telling of the stories that David wrote. It was our understanding and our agreement that this is the way we were gonna work. And it worked!

Milch: I was gonna say, was there a process of adjustment? There absolutely was. And did we make it? Yes, we absolutely did. And did we collaborate effectively thereafter? I think absolutely, that was the case. It was as satisfactory a working relationship as I've ever had.

I have to ask, then, whether the "process of adjustment" that you refer to includes that anecdote that Nick Nolte related to the Los Angeles Times, about you going over to Michael's editing room with a baseball bat, David.

Milch: Oh, I don't know what that was about.
Mann: Take Nick with a grain of salt!

Where would the show have gone in season two? Or had you thought that far ahead?

Mann: Totally. It was going to into a very interesting place of ... Actually David should talk about it, because this is his department.

Milch: With Nostromo, Joseph Conrad said that he had wanted to write a novel about the degradation of an idea. That's what we wanted to show in the case of Dustin Hoffman's character, Bernstein. A dream that he had had, which is an organizing principle [that] we begin our lives with, he finally felt he had an opportunity to live that dream out.

And what would that dream be, for the benefit people reading this who haven't seen Luck?

Milch: This is what's kind of a tragic paradox about what's gone on, [Bernstein] wanted to bring back horse racing, to show it in its purity. The purity and exaltation of the experience of witnessing, and to some extent participating in, the thoroughbred's moment of victory and defeat. And what we wanted to show as the [series] developed was all of the permutations of that experience, as it was subjected to the lunge and thrust and pull of life as lived. And the intrusion of the casino as a metaphor for the kind of mechanization of experience in all its forms and turning experience into an article of commerce. And I might add that even morality can be used and turned into an article of commerce. We've experienced that at the hands of certain groups very recently. But that was gonna be the arc. Michael had built the architecture. We were right on course. It was extremely frustrating to have this sudden intrusion.

Mann: Ace had also elevated himself [beyond] his origins of maybe 30 years ago. In season two, Ace was gonna find himself brought back, right to the way he had been as a man at 30 or 40 years ago, right back into those dark places, with some of the actions he was gonna be compelled to have to do.

Milch: Much of the darkness that one might feel is repressed within Ace, particularly in the power that's there, and in his immobility and stillness, and in Dustin's portrayal of it; the darkness that one might sense, or get a hint of. A lot of that was going to become manifest in the second year.

This show was a marquee item for HBO because of you two, Dustin Hoffman, and Nick Nolte. But it didn't find as big an audience as some other cable dramas currently on the air. Do you have any theories as to why?

Mann: Two things. One is that it's not just a marquee, it's also an emotional investment for everybody at HBO. I mean, that's the fact of it. You wanna know how much ... I mean, we mourn the loss of the show. It's fact. I betcha [HBO president of programming] Michael Lombardo feels the same way about it as we do, and so do a lot of other people there at HBO.

Milch: I just had a conversation with [HBO co-president] Richard Plepler to exactly the same effect.

Mann: In terms of the numbers, it's funny. All journalists know how a combustion engine works. Most people in media don't know how media work. HBO is not an advertiser-based model, it's a subscription model. So what's significant to HBO is not necessarily the debut of an episode, it's the cumulative numbers. Our cumulative averages were about 4.8 million per episode. And if it was strictly about how we do the day that we go out, if that was the strict criterion, then HBO would not have episode one up against the SAG awards, episode two against the Super Bowl, episode three against the Grammys, and episode five against the Academy Awards. And that was okay, by the way, to do that, because you know you're gonna get lower numbers on your debut, and it doesn't matter because the [cumulative numbers] are gonna work ... You know, a show that's somewhat different, that's gonna break the waves, you're gonna have a small group of people, usually in media, who appreciate it first. And then it's on that second wave that the show has a chance. There's no guarantee that this show would have, by the way. But it's in that second wave [that it happens]. That, by the way, is the experience I had way back when with Miami Vice. Critics and the intelligentsia kind of loved the show, but we didn't have any numbers until we started rerunning the first season.

Would you have made any sort of course corrections, any stylistic or aesthetic adjustments, to bring more people into the tent?

Mann: The storytelling was evolving, starting with episode four and then with seven, eight, nine — the last three. And somewhat by design. It was all as David [had] designed it. And David, [co-producer and writer] Eric Roth, and I would sit together and kick ideas around, and David would make the final determination [about what ideas to include]. But as it had been designed, everything that began in the first episode and the middle episodes was all driven, all vectored, to a major conclusion in episode nine, which was also a little bit of a cliff-hanger. I think you've seen episode nine, so you know what I'm talking about.

Yes.
Mann: But then, I've never made any film that I wouldn't go back and re-edit.

And in fact, you have!
Mann: I have. Every time I've had an opportunity.

Milch: You always want high ratings, but I think that Michael spoke accurately to the strategy that HBO deployed. As for changes, I think that Dustin Hoffman's character was in the process of deepening, and encountering — as Michael describes him — the darker impulses of his nature. But that seemed to be a natural evolution rather than a correction.

David, you have a deal in place to adapt the works of William Faulkner for HBO. And Michael, I've heard that you have other projects brewing in TV as well. What's next for each of you?

Mann: I never talk about what's next. [Laughs.] There are some documentaries made with war photographers in conflict.
Milch: It's a wonderful project.
Mann: It's called Witness. [The documentaries] are in production, and also in editing, right now.

Milch: And I'm working on the Faulkner project, and have some other irons in the fire. But it's you know, there was a character in Deadwood, he said, "If you wanna hear God laugh, tell him your plans."

Speaking of Deadwood: David, are we ever gonna see those Deadwood movies?
Milch: No, I don't think so. We got really close about a year ago. Never say never, but it doesn't look that way.

from:
http://www.vulture.com/2012/03/michael-mann-david-milch-interview-luck-horses-cancellation.html

[Sven2]

Left: Turo Escalante (John Ortiz) and Pint'O Plain. Last meeting at the barn.
Right: Marcus (Kevin Dunn) and Pint'O Plain, last goodbye.

                                               

[Sven2]

Last day of selling the Luck props. Santa Anita track with two horses and the rider framing the picture, the mountains and the palms standing guard.

[Cissy]

Thanks Sven! I'm so glad you posted those here. I wouldn't know how to begin to do that. Really nice of John Ortiz to share them with us as well.
Aaarrrgghhhh!
The last scenes, they were so so JFC.
Broke my heart.

[Sven2]

They left us on a high and clear note, that was a great finale.

Here is a re-post from IMDB Luck board by MrsAlSwearengen who compiled the tonight (03/26/12) LuckChat answers from John Ortiz about some of the storylines that where supposed to get developed in season 2.


"For one last time tonight fans of Luck got together on twitter to discuss the show using hashtag #LuckChat, and John Ortiz (Turo Escalante) visited as usual. Nice guy and great actor. None of the other actors showed up tonight.

John dropped a few tidbits about what was planned for Season 2.

He says Ep1 of S2 is in post-production now so it may be on the DVD. Not sure about Ep2 which wasn't finished.

Turo and Jo the lady vet were probably going to be together for the long haul.

Ronnie Jenkins would hit a new low in S2.

The Foray Stables guys were moving to "a new crib" together as they discussed in the final ep of S1, and were to meet new interesting characters. He explained this was necessary because the show made the Oasis Motel so much money it renovated itself out of a job. It's too nice a motel now for the degenerates.

The story of the kid Eduardo would take a dramatic turn in Ep1 S2.

Ep4 S2, The Foray guys, Turo, and Jo would all take a road trip to Northern California (all in one van) and Mon Gateau gets loose, creating havoc for everyone.

Foray stables will purchase a new horse.

He mentioned something about Walter Smith bidding for a horse in auction as proxy for Ace.

Ep6 S2 Jerry would play in the World Series of Poker in Vegas.

He also told us that there is an upcoming auction of HBO props from the show. He sent us a photo of Israel's decapitated head, going for $1,750.
https://twitter.com/#!/johnortiz718/status/184457639248412672/photo/1

He said he would send a tweet with details on the auction but so far he hasn't sent it. If I see it eventually I will edit it into this post.

John got Turo's stable sign for himself.

He plans to give the Karnak portrait in his office to Julio Canani (the trainer who was the inspiration for Turo) as a gift.

There was only one vest made with Turo's "TE" initials on it - he hopes to get it himself and may auction it for charity.

He would love to do an Escalante spin-off, lol"

Escalante character is based on a very well-known horse trainer named Julio Canani who worked many years at the Santa Anita racetrack. Here are Ortiz and Canani.



from:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1578887/board/thread/196787605

[Sven2]

Hard 'Luck': Why HBO's Horseracing Drama is Still Worth Seeking Out
by Alison Willmore , "Indiewire"

Watching the outstanding season (and series) finale of "Luck," which went out quietly on Sunday night while the country turned its attention to "Mad Men," it was hard not wonder if the show would have found more of a following if the rest of it had been like its ending.

Written by Eric Roth and directed by Mimi Leder, the last episode unites the characters on the day of a derby race in which most had a stake, either by way of betting, riding, training or ownership. It features an underdog triumph, a murder, a departure, a medical scare, a photo finish and a naked girl rolling around in a bed of money -- everything you'd want in a cable TV show for adults, with that phrase's many implications.

But it wasn't ratings that resulted in the cancellation of "Luck," it was the unfortunate death of three horses during the show's production. And "Luck," while not opposed to sequences of reward and drama, is a show that loved and relied on quiet moments and the weight of what was being left unsaid.

It sometimes made for counterintuitive television that, as I speculated before, will play out better when it can be consumed in one or two sessions on DVD instead of being doled out over weeks. And the show's still well worth seeking out, even if it's not returning -- the final moments served well enough to provide welcome closure for some while promising storms on the horizon for others. And there's always trouble on the way in "Luck," and not just of the sort the paranoid Marcus (Kevin Dunn) is always predicting -- the extent to which the series takes its name to heart became increasingly clear as the season unfolded.

The show has the feel and texture of an unfiltered cigarette and a tumbler of Scotch, a cast of characters dominated by grizzled, guarded men with soft hearts who are worse for the wear but still ready to make a go of things, as bad or as good as those things might be. "Whatever complications, this is where we are, what we have to make our lives with," Dustin Hoffman's Chester Bernstein tells his estranged grandson, brought back into his life by his enemies as a potential target. "Hands are dealt, we got to see how we play them."

Luck is, in the parlance of the show, about accepting how little is in your control. The slinky opening credits are filled with charms and tokens -- horseshoe rings and neon four-leaf clovers, crosses and coins on chains -- symbolizing the way in which people try to influence their fortunes, but also speaking to they've chosen or had chosen for them a life that depends on chance. Jerry (Jason Gedrick), for instance, is a brilliant handicapper of horses whose skills nab him and his friends -- who name themselves Foray Stables -- a small fortune and a chance to buy a horse of their own. But he's a disaster at the poker tables, even though he can't stay away from them. As his card-playing nemesis points out, he doesn't bet by the numbers, he bets like he's got to prove how lucky he is... and he most of the time, he isn't.

So many of the characters in "Luck" are distinguished either by a great loss or by having nothing to begin with. The Foray railbirds have experienced so little success in their lives that to see them do well and figure out how to handle that has been one of the show's great pleasures, as the four check into connecting rooms in a nearby motel that looks like it's out of another era and flutter over the shoulder of their surly trainer Turo Escalante (John Ortiz) like helicopter parents. Nick Nolte's trainer Walter Smith, the most grizzled of them all, is still heartsick from the demise of the old Kentucky farm on which he used to work and the killing of the horse who sired Gettin' Up Morning, the colt with great potential he's been working with.

Escalante (I just can't call him "Turo") has scrabbled his way up from humble beginnings and is so tightly closed and seemingly uninterested in other people that one of his most lovely emotional moments came when in the finale when he asks Chester if he has any children. His girlfriend, or rather the woman he's been sleeping with, Jo (Jill Hennessy) has gotten pregnant, and suddenly the possibility of having a family, of having a life, seems like something he'd want after all. (The show caps this moment by having him step back into a bucket of water and go back to bellowing in Spanish at his underling.)

And Chester, who starts off the show only aiming for revenge, with the help of his faithful driver and friend and, as the finale proves, stealthy tough guy Gus Demitriou (Dennis Farina), falls in love, with the track, with the horse he's bought, with Claire Lachay (Joan Allen), who runs a nonprofit based on rehabilitating convicts by having them work with rescued thoroughbreds. It's only by having things that you can feel the threat of losing them, and Chester's old foe Michael (Michael Gambon), who's escalated their feud, is there taunting him on the day of his big race, pointing out all the soft spots he's developed.

"Luck" celebrates the calm center that people who've gotten used to loss can develop, a sort of zen state and due to that, it's as gentle on and generous with their failures as their wins. Take Ronnie Jenkins, played by real-life jockey Gary Stevens, the experienced, older rider there to contrast the up-and-comers Rosie (Kerry Condon) and Leon (Tom Payne). Struggling with addictions and injuries ("I break this collarbone more than I get laid," he resignedly tells a paramedic after a fall), he's not reliable, but his fits of greatness and his times of weakness are treated with a level gaze. "That Jenkins fellow's a maestro," Rosie observes after seeing him race. "Yes he is," Walter allows, "when the spirit moves. You understand?"

A little, but that will have to do. At nine episodes total, "Luck" doesn't feel finished, but it's not the type of show that ever would. Sometimes fortune favors you and sometimes it doesn't, but you have to play the cards you're dealt.


from:
http://www.indiewire.com/article/television/hard-luck-why-hbos-david-milch-and-michael-mann-horseracing-drama-is-worth-seeking-out?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&offset=0

[Sven2]

John Ortiz tweeted (...) that Neigh Savers of California will handle adoptions of 15-16 of the horses left stranded after the cancelation of Luck. All are "sound horses, in incredible shape." HBO will be footing the bill. No help from PETA has been mentioned. As Escalante would say, "What a surprise."

Individual horses in need of rescuing are listed on the site.(...)

http://www.neighsavers.com/

From the web page:

    Neigh Savers Foundation was incorporated in July 2007 as a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation and has been certified by the IRS as a tax exempt charity. Any donations made to Neigh Savers are fully tax deductible. Neigh Savers provides California's Thoroughbreds with a chance at a second career or a well deserved retirement when their racing careers have come to an end due to soundness issues, age or lack of success at the track.

    Neigh Savers assists in making a "Thoroughbred Connection" that places a deserving Thoroughbred into another life. Through our network we seek to find Thoroughbreds new careers in dressage, eventing, pleasure riding, trail riding or as therapy horses. If not suitable for any new career we try to find loving homes where a horse can simply retire as a pasture ornament or serve as companion equines."

Re-post from IMDB Luck Board
by MrsAlSwerengen


Here is one more place for retired thoroughbreds, perhaps closest to the one described in Luck, as it employs inmates for the rehabilitation of horses. You can sponsor a horse that has a racing record, worked hard in their life and deserves a peaceful day in the sun. 

http://www.trfinc.org/

The donations are gladly accepted.

[Sven2]

FAREWELL LUCK

[Cissy]

Sven, thank you so much for the pictures, I love the one you made, it's perfect. I'll keep it in my mind with the other 2 closing shots of the finale. John Ortiz face over the stable sign, sad face. Me too. Thanks for the tweet recap and the new article, encouraging people to still see this show. It got better with each episode, including the finale.

[Tali]

Sven,
Thank you so much for the pictures!!! Love the one you made.  Turo was my absolute favorite character. I've added Turo talk to my JFC speak, it kind of sounds like this: "Some mope with two deeferent size hair cuts" Well, you know what I mean. It breaks my heart that this show is over now, too. I also could kick myself for not coming by before to check here in case you all were talking Luck. Why didn't someone come find me? I didn't go to any of the HBO boards, or IMDB, sort of followed some of the stuff that made it over on Facebook, but I just kind of feel lost out there on the net anymore... there's just too much of it! Thank you for being here, am I too late to talk? I Will catch up on all the Luck posts here. I saw one other folder that was talking Luck, are there others here maybe under a different heading. Loved this show so much, and the horses, oh the beautiful beautiful horses.

[Sven2]

Hey, Tali, good to see you here, Sis. 

Like yourself, I resort to places of Facebook and Twitter only in absolute need, as in MHO they promise more than can deliver, pretend to connect, but in the end become either a celebrity watch or the endless stream of fractured bits of someone's existence, not missed even by the owner. Besides - intrusion of ads, gosh, and the lurking stalkers, brrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Here is an old-fashioned and alias protected haven, where we got together for the good cause, fought a good battle and keep sweet memories. No future, certainly, but so what - it is a place where Zippy can give anyone a kiss, as long as we were being stupid. What's more there to wish for?

We (whoever stopped by) didn't talk much about Luck, there are good reviews though that I tried to save for the revisiting. The show was pure Milch by blood and genetics, obviously doomed by that as well, like his beloved thoroughbreds. 

Turo and the Four Amigos are the characters I miss, can't wait and hope that HBO will edit in post-production the only finished episode 1 of the second season  and release the DVD this summer.

Other than that - I am watching JFC again, never seem to get tired of it. From the first "motherfucker" to the last "mother of God, Kass-Kai" it is a powerful wave.