We all know why they really cancelled the show- bad ratings. But we haven't heard much about the first two breakdowns. The last one occurred when they were walking the horse back to the stall, as reported. But we never heard the details of the first two. In the first episode there was a catastrophic breakdown in the very first race, I believe(it didn't take the show long to show that part of horse racing) Was this the horse that had to be euthanized? Did something go wrong with a stunt they were doing?

They should be able to perform these stunts safely. A horse can fall and get back up safely. Heck, back in the day in these steeplechase races, the WINNER of the race typically fell three or four times.

the other two fatalities were discussed earlier in the thread. go to page 6.

Well, at least there's still Game of Thrones.

Apologies if this has been posted before- this TV Guide article mentions that Stronach may have wanted to stop allowing the show to have Santa Anita as its location:

http://www.tvguide.com/News/Luck-HBO...n-1044949.aspx

212-512-1000

I have called HBO at the above number and expressed my extreme dissapointment at their broken promise not to renew Luck. http://www.theatlantic.com/entertain...s-luck/254539/
" The cancellation of the series... is a devastating blow to horse racing."

Hope you'll make it through these dark days. LOL

We here at DT should create a spinoff of Luck and call it...

Phuck.

:tro:

good one:tro:

:zz:

The Finger Lakes opener can't get here fast enough - all will be right with the world

These numbers indicate ratings were indeed good. The combined viewings are the most meaningful because fans can watch the episodes when they want to. I am an On Demand viewer.

"The complex drama proved a challenge for viewers, and "Luck" fell far short of an HBO hit such as "The Sopranos," drawing as few as 500,000 for a weekly debut showing. But the combined figure that included DVR viewings was 4.8 million per episode, exceeding that of other HBO shows including "Treme," "Enlightened" and "Bored to Death.""

http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/arti..._real_for_hbo/

That's interesting. I was one of the DVR'ing viewers, as my husband is still watching that once good, but now exceedingly boring hour known as The Walking Dead and it runs the same time as Luck.

I guess, though, that Enlightened and Bored to Death are probably a lot cheaper to produce. I don't know about Treme, but rumors are it's done after its contracted 4th season.

no the breakdown in the first episode was produced by a computer.. it was not real life.

the first two deaths were terrible accidents that occur daily in the horse world unfortunately.

Just out of curiosity, are the horses being used (including the ones who broke down) all very cheap claimers?

Nah, they probably use grade 1 winners for stuff like this.

They looked slower than Arabians in the footage last night.

Thanks Hoss. :rolleyes:

What I wanted to know was, maybe some of these horses were on vet's lists or just truly the bottom of the bottom. Would it be above some trainers to volunteer a horse that they knew was being kept together by glue? Knowing the horse could never win a race and was stuck in the barn because he/she would never get claimed. So offer it up to HBO and if something should happen, having HBO write a check.

It's a fairly big Hollywood production. I would imagine they weren't just taking castoffs. I'm sure they vetted (for lack of a better term) the horses they were going to use.

Out of curiosity, I went to the AHA website and looked at its list of regulations for equine performers and it's very extensive. Most equines in film and TV are supplied by companies specializing in that (there's a really cool documentary extra about the horses and stunt riders in the Lord of the Rings movies, by the way), but I don't know if, with such a large number of TB or TB-look-alikes, they got all of them via that route, or if they worked with individual owners. Anyway, some of the regulations include, no horse younger than 4, no medication, no tranquilizers, no whipping. So, unless the AHA vets are complete idiots, I find it hard to believe they'd okay injured claimers for racing sequences. Not to mention, the horses probably wouldn't be good-looking enough for the camera.

I think it was just unfortunate accidents.