"Yet even if the sport’s critics distort some aspects of the horse-safety issue, thoroughbred racing is facing a crisis that has been brewing since the Eight Belles tragedy. The industry is alienating large numbers of fans and potential fans who believe the sport is ruthlessly inhumane in its treatment of animals. That is a misperception ... but the industry nevertheless has a real problem that it has failed to address effectively."

Talking with Alan Sepinwall: "It was HBO, definitively. There was back and forth about it, but their feeling was so clearly that the situation was untenable, that there was really no protracted dispute. We were presented with an accomplished fact. And I don't say that with any resentment. They made the decision they felt they had to make."

"It's telling that HBO's biggest successes have not been major star vehicles; Steve Buscemi, in Boardwalk Empire, is an exception, and one who combines screen excellence with a jobbing actor's ethic. The Wire, The Sopranos and Game of Thrones are not celebrity reliant. (The latter was able to dispense with Sean Bean in the first series with no loss of steam.) At their best, such dramas resonate because, however far-fetched their premise, they tell awful, ringing, thematic truths about the world as it is, its powerplays, ironies and tragedies. Luck doesn't; it was surly, selfish men plotting obscurely about something or other, graceless on the small screen. Lesson to HBO? Next time Hollywood's ex-players come a-knocking at the stable door, pretend you've already bolted."

"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."

"Frank Stronach, chairman of race-track owner Stronach Group, said Wednesday he was so unhappy about the 'unbalanced' series that he would have stopped the filming at Santa Anita if it hadn't been cancelled."

"Mann said the Milch script for 'Luck' was one of the richest and most compelling that had ever crossed his desk.... Underpinning all of it is the juxtaposition between the majestic horses and the desperate people who exploit them and one another. Mann is especially pleased by the shadows in the plot.... All of it is a puzzle to be solved, and Mann, the detective, seemed giddy to be on the case."

"HBO officials say their programming department has yet to make a final decision as to whether the pilot, which was written by Milch of 'Deadwood' fame and directed by Michael Mann, will be picked up as a series. But racetrack officials believe there is 'a very strong possibility' that HBO will go forward with the high-stakes drama, which would also star Nick Nolte as a horse trainer."

Filming starts March 29. "On any given day, we’ll have between 100 and 500 crew, cast and extras on-site here. Mr. Milch and Mr. Mann expressed a strong desire to shoot much of this pilot while we were running live, which we will be, through April 18."