Donald Miralle / AP

"Jockeys," a 12-episode series taking viewers behind the scenes in the backstabbing, big-money, dangerous world of horse racing, debuts Feb. 6 on Animal Planet.

updated 10:24 p.m. ET Feb. 5, 2009

Move over, Heidi Klum and Paris Hilton. Some of the littlest guys in sports are joining you on reality television.

“Jockeys,” a 12-episode series taking viewers behind the scenes of the backstabbing, big-money, dangerous world of horse racing, debuts Friday on Animal Planet.

Billed as a documentary-soap opera, the show follows seven riders — Hall of Famer Mike Smith, Canadian import Chantal Sutherland, teenager Joe Talamo, veterans Jon Court, Aaron Gryder and Alex Solis, and Australian newcomer Kayla Stra — on and off the racetrack.

Smith is dating Sutherland, who is shown in the first episode leaving her family to move to Southern California so she can be with Smith and try to elevate her career.

Competing against Smith in races and then going home with him at night makes for “a really interesting dynamic,” she said.

“Because he’s in the Hall of Fame and a well-known rider, we kind of have different business,” Sutherland said. “I respect him and I learn from him. I want to beat him so I can come home and maybe silently gloat. He’s a good sport.”

Smith and Sutherland rarely talk about the inherent danger each of them face riding 1,200-pound animals at speeds up to 40 mph in a 2-minute race.

“I do get very anxious watching him in a race, but when I’m racing him, I don’t think about it at all,” she said. “It’s stressful. That part is not the fun part of our relationship.”

Allowing cameras to follow them all day at the track and then home at night was “a bit tedious at times,” Smith said.

Some of the jockeys wore microphones while riding, allowing viewers rare audio of their adrenaline-charged comments.

The action isn’t all on the racetrack. Cameras go inside the close quarters of the jockeys’ room, where sometimes pent-up emotions from what happened during a race spill over and erupt in fighting.

The hot-button issues of safety, treatment of the fragile thoroughbreds and how jockeys compete under strict weight limits are part of the show.

Co-executive producer Liz Bronstein was surprised to find a lively bunch of riders who successfully strike a balance between competition and friendship.

“So often you’re working with people who really want to be on TV and really want to be stars. A lot of reality shows really suffer from that,” she said. “These were guys who didn’t really care if they were on a TV show. All of them were involved because they love horse racing and want more people to love horse racing.”

The show was filmed last fall at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, Calif., in the month leading up to the Breeders’ Cup World Championships, racing’s richest two days.

The riders are seen scrambling to secure mounts for the 14 Breeders’ Cup races, where purses range from $1 million to $5 million. Winning just one of the races can set a jockey up for a good year financially and lend prestige to their resume.

The pressure is intense, not only to land a mount, but to win for themselves, the owner, the trainer, the breeder and the jockey’s agent, who typically gets 10 percent of their client’s winnings.

“A month of preparation for me to mess up in a minute,” Smith says on the show.

Slideshow   The Week in Sports Pictures A kayaker flips out, a racehorse eyes the Triple Crown and more. more photos

The recession caused decreased wagering and the tragic breakdown of filly Eight Belles at the Kentucky Derby put the sport under fire.

“This is going to be the first great exposure we’ve had in racing for a lot of years,” Gryder said. “People are going to see that these horses each have caretakers that in many cases live just 30 feet away. If any horse gets a fever, an on-call doctor makes a house call and treats them in about 30 minutes.”

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