HBO's 'Luck' Lives On -- In Blog Form

11:10 AM PST 2/19/2013 by Lesley Goldberg

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John Perrotta, a writer on the canceled horse racing drama, is continuing the series online in an attempt to bring awareness to thoroughbred racing.

"Luck"

Luck ran out on HBO nearly a year ago, but the horse racing drama is continuing on thanks to writer John Perrotta.

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As part of a blog on America's Best Racing, a site designed to boost thoroughbred racing events in North America, Perrotta is contributing weekly posts detailing scenes involving some of the characters featured in Luck.

The first installment posted Feb. 14 and featured "the Degenerates" -- the characters portrayed by Kevin Dunn, Ian Hart, Ritchie Coster and Jason Gedrick on the HBO show -- along with those played by the stars of the David Milch and Michael Mann drama: Dustin Hoffman, John Ortiz, Dennis Farina and more.

STORY: HBO Ends 'Luck' After Horse Deaths

Perrotta, the site says, is a veteran of the horse racing and breeding business and a jockey agent for Hall of Famer Gary Stevens (who was portrayed by Ronnie Jenkins in Luck).

The low-rated series, which also starred Nick Nolte, was canceled during production on season two following the death of a third horse. Oscar winner Hoffman in January blamed TMZ and PETA for the drama's cancellation, claiming the animal rights organization spread misinformation about the treatment of the horses on the set at the Santa Anita racetrack east of Los Angeles.

PHOTOS: Premiere of HBO's Luck

"It still deeply wounds me," Hoffman told Fox News. "Not for myself, not for the show, but the pain they caused 400 crew people to have. And I don’t think [PETA and TMZ] lost a moment’s sleep. It’s completely distorted. Anyone who raises horses knows they break their legs. The accusations they made were distorted. Every time we’d race the horses, we’d rest them. They’d race 20 seconds, then we’d rest them for an hour."

Despite critical praise, Luck was a ratings underperformer for HBO, averaging about 625,000 total viewers per episode during its freshman run.

Check out the first installment of Luck online here.

Email: Lesley.Goldberg@thr.com; Twitter: @Snoodit