Jockey Mike Smith beat his former fiancee, Chantal Sutherland, in a match race at Del Mar on Sunday that was billed as the ''Battle of the Exes.''
Smith and his favored mount, Joker Face, took the lead from the gate and beat Sutherland and Parable by 2-1/4 lengths, covering a mile on the main track in 1 minute, 36.55 seconds.
The 45-year-old Hall of Famer Smith and the 35-year-old veteran rider Sutherland were once engaged during a relationship that was documented on the former Animal Planet show ''Jockeys.''
Smith said he was under serious pressure from his fellow male jockeys to beat Sutherland.
''I've been taking heat for the last three or four days from the boys,'' Smith said. ''Rightly so. I had to win this one. They would never let me live it down if I didn't.''
It was the fifth match race in Del Mar history and the first since jockey Patrick Valenzuela narrowly beat Julie Krone in a 2003 duel dubbed ''Battle of the Sexes.''
''Even though I didn't win, it was fun. It was exciting,'' Sutherland said. ''When we went onto the backside and there was just the two of us, that was really neat. Never had that one before.''
The horses, both 3-year-old maidens, were chosen by the track's racing secretary for comparable ability and were assigned riders by blind draw.
Joker Face, trained by Peter Eurton, paid $3.20 for his first win and earned $18,600.
