Instant Winner

There’s an unmistakable allure at a racetrack, the sense that one’s luck — and even one’s whole life — can change in an instant by picking the right horse to win. The flip side is that for every winner, there are thousands of losers at any second, from well-adjusted folks willing to lose a few bucks amid a fun afternoon to hard-core failures, whose lives further circle the drain each time they place another way-too-big bet. 

Add in the beauty of historic architecture, clear blue skies with perfect temperatures and the majesty of the San Gabriel Mountains surrounding the excitement of the horse races themselves, and it’s easy to understand why two of Hollywood’s most visionary filmmakers — director Michael Mann (“Miami Vice,” “Heat,” “Collateral”) and writer/producer David Milch (“Deadwood”) — would want to create an entire TV series about Arcadia’s own Santa Anita Park racetrack.  The latest bold attempt at television greatness by HBO, its series, “Luck,” follows seemingly dozens of characters through the daily dramas that are just as easily found in the real world of that or dozens of other racetracks across America 

As Milch says, in an HBO press release about the series, “the racetrack is a place of incomparable beauty, and the animals and humans who inhabit it illustrate their best and worst possibilities. So as a setting for storytelling, you couldn’t ask for anything more.” 

“Luck” debuted its nine-episode first season, which airs at 9 p.m. Sundays on HBO, on Jan. 29 and hit such solid ratings that it was immediately renewed for a second season. 

But just how accurate is it about the world of racing? And considering that the series’ most famous cast member is Oscar-winning legend Dustin Hoffman, who plays a gangster named Chester “Ace” Bernstein just out of prison and already owning a horse under shady circumstances, does the series risk making Santa Anita, or the racing industry as a whole, look bad? 

“The show absolutely gets it right,” says Gary Stevens, one of Santa Anita’s most famous former jockeys, who now works as a commentator for Horse Racing Television (HRTV) and also plays boozy veteran jockey Ronnie Jenkins on “Luck.”  “It’s not just about horse racing, but about the lives of the people that are behind the scenes, that the fans of horse racing don’t always get to know. Mann and Milch don’t sugarcoat anything.

“Someone tweeted me a complaint that it degraded horse racing, and I said ‘It’s you.’ This is real life, so of course there are suspicious characters and not everything is ice cream with cherries on top. But that’s what real life is about.”

Stevens speaks from experience, having maintained a 26-year career as a star jockey in which he won three Kentucky Derbies, three Belmont Stakes, two Preakeness Stakes and nine Santa Anita Derbies. Nowadays, he is one of 100 employees at HRTV, based out of Santa Anita, and maintains coverage of the racing world 24 hours a day. At that operation, Stevens is one of nearly 2,000 track employees, all supporting the $800 million in wagering and $600 million in payouts that flows into the track annually.

Stevens broke into acting by playing jockey George Woolf in the movie “Seabiscuit” and has managed to build a growing career out of his natural abilities and steely charm. But he feels that “Luck” will take him much further than anything else he’s done as a performer. 

“My character grows continually, and develops, and I’m involved in every episode,” says Stevens. “Acting isn’t something that I dreamed of doing as a kid or even an adult. I think anything you do that is fulfilling in life in general, personal or professional, is a challenge.”

“The need to succeed is better when you’re not after the money but doing a good job and wanting to, at the end of the day, improve on your abilities, whether you’re a jockey or actor,” Stevens continues. “If you’re not challenged, it’s probably not a very good part or a very good horse. I get the same disappointment when I’m average in acting or racing. Average against these cast members is not good enough.” 

Indeed, “Luck” certainly feels real, as it digs deeply into the lives of the trainers and jockeys, who hit the track at sunrise each day for workouts, feel the heart-pounding exhilaration of victory, the heart-tugging sadness of defeat and the utter depression of occasionally having to euthanize an injured horse. Its most colorful characters are four self-described “degenerates,” who team up to win a Pick Six (a contest in which one ticket predicts the winning horses in six straight races) and turn an $850 bet into a $2.7-million payout. 

Of course, that much money being dangled in front of shady personalities can only lead to trouble, and the great fun of “Luck” so far is watching Milch and his ace writing staff unspool the strings that will inevitably snap around these losers’ lives. 

“It’s a little grimmer than what I see every day, but that’s David Milch, and he bases his characters on people I see every day at the track,” says Pete Siberell, who oversees both the show and more than 175 special events each year as Santa Anita’s director of community service and special projects. “The crime aspect was a concern of ours, but as far as the mobsters go, this is part of a longer story line taking place over one to three seasons, where Hoffman’s interest in Santa Anita is a lot more benign than what people expect.”

One other example of how Siberell maintained damage control over how corrupt the racetrack would be portrayed came in suggesting the final fate of a shady security guard. 

“In the pilot, we have a crooked security guard, but we don’t want people to think security are loan sharks. So we made it clear to Milch that that’s not something we tolerate, so the character gets fired by track management when they find out,” says Siberell. “Each script has little things we say is not representative of what we do here, and they’ve been pretty responsive in terms of storyline and changing scenes.” 

Siberell serves as the bridge between the reality of the track and the show’s fictional world, as he reads all the scripts, works out the contracts for all rights and services and makes sure that both the daily track needs and the show’s needs can all be met amicably. He notes that Santa Anita has a long history of welcoming productions, including Marx Brothers comedies and “A Star Is Born,” but says that there’s been a filming boom ever since the park played host to the Oscar-nominated smash hit “Seabiscuit” in 2003. 

“We have 1,800 horses stabled here, and they have training from 5 to 10 a.m., and then races in the afternoon,” explains Siberell. “My job was to help the filming go smoothly but not interfere with races. There were times when they overlapped, wanting to shoot during training or races. They want to shoot in every possible area, and that has an impact on our racing crowd and sometimes our employees as well.”

Ultimately, Siberell takes a philosophical attitude about “Luck,” realizing that it’s just another way to enjoy the ride. 

“It’s HBO, not Disney,” he concludes. “But we think the good really outweighs any negative aspects. It sure makes Santa Anita look good — gorgeous, really. Milch says this is his love letter to the racing industry.”