Remember When a Million Horses Died on the Set of HBO's Luck? According to This Lawsuit, It Was Actually 1,000,001
Last spring, horses everywhere neighed a sigh of relief when production was cancelled on HBO's horse-racing drama Luck, after three gambling-addicted horses died on set.
Now, the Hollywood Reporter writes that a new lawsuit is continuing to beat HBO over its dead horses, by alleging the number of steeds that died is actually closer to TEN THOUSAND. (The number of horses that the lawsuit claims died—four—is one closer to ten thousand).
In the lawsuit, filed against the American Humane Association and HBO, Barbara Casey, a former production director in the AHA's film-and-television unit, alleged that a horse named Hometrader died months before the show was canceled— and that the AHA and HBO worked to cover-up his death.
"AHA told its representatives not to document [Hometrader's] death because he was killed during a summer hiatus from filming and therefore did not count."
Casey also says that HBO went out of its way to "[misidentify] horses so that the humane officers and/or animal safety representatives could not track their medical histories."
Like they would point at a horse they knew was named "Majestic Chestnut" and be like, "that guy's Tom, we don't know how he broke his leg, he just moved here from Canada, probably had a glass leg or something, we've never seen him before."
Casey says she was unlawfully fired from the AHA (which, fun fact, owns a copyright on the "No animals were harmed in the making of this motion picture" disclaimer) for attempting to report its criminal activity.
In response to the lawsuit, HBO released a statement saying it "took every precaution to ensure that our horses were treated humanely and with the utmost care."
Yet many horses working as production assistants on the set of Girls continue to pull in slaves' wages. Curious.