The Arcadia Coordinating Council’s Campership Fund received a surprise donation of $10,000 Thursday morning (April 8th) during the annual Mayor’s Community Breakfast at Santa Anita Park.
During a talk about the filming of the upcoming HBO scripted horse racing TV show “Luck,” at Santa Anita and other locations around Arcadia, David Milch, the creator/writer/producer of series such as “Hill Street Blues,” “NYPD Blue” and “Deadwood,” pledged the “opening gesture” to the fund that, since 1947, has been making it possible for low-income children to attend camps, excursion trips, and to purchase camp supplies and uniforms.
(Story continues following the video highlights below…)
Get the Flash Player to see this content. . Milch said the new HBO production also wants to make paid apprenticeships available to local residents and allow underage children of Arcadia “to have the opportunity to be around the show.”
“It’s important to sink our roots deep into the community,” he said. “This is just the beginning of what I hope we will be able to do.”
Milch was one of three guest speakers invited by Mayor John Wuo, along with Hall of Fame jockey Mike Smith, and Carolyn Conley of HorseRacing Television (HRTV), and a singing performance by Carrie Qiu, the winner of last summer’s Arcadia’s Got Talent contest.
Milch is not only a writer/producer but also an avid horse race fan and thoroughbred owner. He shared an amusing anecdote about his horse experiences that delighted the several hundred people in attendance.
Not long after winning the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (the first of two for Milch-owned horses) and the Eclipse Award in 1992, Milch’s Gilded Time went through a rough patch of being unable to run until a meet at Del Mar.
After a good run, Gilded Time took a bad step and Milch knew there would be no hope for another Breeders’ Cup. He made the drive back to Los Angeles feeling bluer than he ever had about anything.
But he soon felt even more blue when he walked in the door of his house. “The phone was ringin’ and it was my wife reminding me that I had left her and our children at Del Mar.”
After howls of laughter, Milch got more thoughtful as he told the Arcadia community leaders gathered at Santa Anita’s Frontrunner restaurant that he feels horse racing provides an appreciation of our place in a larger scheme of things. “To be associated with horses and other animals is to recognize a proper humility as a source of meaning in our lives.”
That passion about the sport and lifestyle is what drove to create the new “Luck” TV series about the culture of horse racing, starring Dustin Hoffman, Nick Nolte, and others, being shot by film director Michael Mann beginning earlier this month almost entirely at Santa Anita Park and in locations around Arcadia.
Milch said he chose the name “Luck” “because we tend to associate it with numbers, and the truth is that numbers, without the further association of passion and courage and humility, really are meaningless. And that’s what each of us brings to the experience of horse racing.”
He later told Arcadia’s Best that he hopes the new show creates more awareness and interest in thoroughbred horse racing.
“I want it to; I very much want it to. I’ve loved the game since I was a kid up at Saratoga.”
Milch demonstrated his own humility and gratitude with his $10,000 donation.
With that, Milch said he was happy to meet everyone and particularly the speaker who preceded him, jockey Mike Smith, who told the crowd he would be riding the horses to bet on Thursday before he was to fly to Arkansas to ride Zenyatta the next day at Oaklawn Park on Friday, April 9.
“I’m awfully glad to have had the chance to say hello to everyone and particularly to hear from Mike about the 3rd and 4th races today,” Milch joked.
Smith’s illustrious career at Santa Anita includes last year’s exciting last-to-first Breeders’ Cup victory aboard Zenyatta and a starring role in the Animal Planet series “Jockeys,” which was filmed at Santa Anita for two seasons.
In addition to her work as TV host and reporter, Conley also wrote and produced “The Lost Years,” a documentary for HRTV chronicling the use of Santa Anita Park during World War II. She shared insights and background on Santa Anita’s illustrious history in Arcadia, appropriate as Santa Anita wraps up its 75th anniversary season.
— By Scott Hettrick