Some Dirt on HBO's Cancelling 'Luck'?

After the third death of a horse during production of HBO's Luck, at first they said they would continue forward with production of non-horse scenes and halt all shoots involving horses until the matter was investigated.  HBO Suspends Production .

Then a day later, it was reported that HBO cancelled Luck.

That seemed like a pretty quick turnaround of perspectives.  The suppositions around the professional media world was possible concerns about continued negative press.  But Fox News is reporting a few things...

First there was PETA ragging on HBO for using horses to film a horse racing series. (Go figure)  Then after the cancellation, PETA tossed out a bit about HBO was using old and drugged horses.

But HBO said the drugs found were applied after the injury to allow their vet to examine the injured horse.  But PETA says there were other drugs present in the dead animal's body and PETA called for law enforcement to investigate.  And onward as PETA grinded on HBO.

Then Fox is reporting that there were developing issues at Santa Anita, where HBO was filming the series.

It's being reported that Frank Stronach, chairman of the Stronach Group who owns Santa Anita, reportedly was becoming increasingly disappointed with the light that HBO was painting the industry of horse racing with.

He was planning on having a sit down with the producers.

Whether he did or not is a matter of speculation and HBO reps said they have no knowledge of a conversation like that. (But that's because he was "planning" to have the sit down.)

Whatever the reason, which I'm sure we'll probably hear more about this somewhere down the road, the show premiered to just over 1 million viewers but then ratings dropped by more than half after that. 

So I'm thinking in this case, this was cutting losses before more heat came down on the studio for anything else, for a mediocre rated series.

source: foxnews
-Bruce