HBO Releases Statement on the Death of a Horse on THE GILDED AGE Set

HBO has released a statement following the death of a horse on the set of the Gilded Age.

Deadline reports that the statement was made after PETA has requested that HBO launch a formal investigation after the "23-year-old" horse with "possible health issues" passed during production of The Gilded Age's second season in Nassau County, New York.

"HBO was saddened to learn that on June 28, during filming on the set of The Gilded Age, a horse collapsed and died, likely of natural causes, according to a veterinarian's preliminary findings. The safety and well-being of animals on all our productions is a top priority, and the producers of THE GILDED AGE work with American Humane to ensure full compliance with all safety precautions. Following AHA's recommendation, the horse was transported to a facility for a full necropsy. AHA has interviewed all involved personnel, and full necropsy results are pending."

Prior to its collapse, wranglers and a veterinarian had concluded that the horse had allegedly not been overheated and had not displayed any signs of discomfort from being overworked.

The 22-year-old horse, who had prior filming experience, had started filming 15 minutes after resting for one hour. The scene involved a carriage with two passengers aboard. After filming was halted to administer help for the horse, production wrapped for the day.

Now in production for season two, THE GILDED AGE takes place in a period of immense economic change, of huge fortunes made and lost, and of fierce rivalry between old money and new. Nowhere is that rivalry more apparent than on East 61st Street, where Marian Brook and her thoroughly old money aunts, Agnes van Rhijn and Ada Brook, live opposite the stupendously rich George and Bertha Russell.

The Russells are both fiercely ambitious, he financially, she socially, and they are determined to reach the highest echelons of New York. Meanwhile in Brooklyn, Marian's friend and confidant Peggy Scott forges her own path in the world of the Black elite. In this glittering world on the BRINK of the modern age, will the established rules of society prevail, or will the game change entirely?