Douglas Dodson was born in Pickardville, Alberta, Canada, the son of James Floyd and Emma Dodson. His family moved to a ranch in Elk River, Idaho when he was still a child and as a small boy he learned to ride horses and rope steers. His parents moved to Burns, Oregon where at age fifteen, he was working as a shoeshine boy when trainer Harry Walters told the diminutive boy shining his shoes about racing Thoroughbreds. [1] Deciding that he wanted to try his luck as a jockey, Dodson soon traveled to the Longacres RacetrackinRenton, Washington. There, he was hired by trainer Walter Neilsen and, while still an apprentice jockey in 1939, won the Pacific Northwest's most prestigious race, the Longacres Mile. At age seventeen, he was the youngest jockey to ever win the Longacres Mile.
In 1940, the then nineteen-year-old Dodson was signed by Warren Wright, Sr. to join Eddie Arcaro as a rider for his Calumet Farm stable of Lexington, Kentucky. In September of the previous year, Wright had hired Ben Jones as head trainer. The result saw Calumet Farm record the most successful decade of any racing stable in the history of American Thoroughbred racing. Between 1945 and 1961, Douglas Dodson made twelve appearances in the Kentucky Derby without winning. His best result came with his first ride in 1945 aboard Pot O'Luck when he ran second.[1] Later that year, he rode Pot O' Luck to victory in the Jockey Club Gold Cup. Dodson finished third in the Derby on three other occasions. He had much better luck in the second leg of the U.S. Triple Crown, the Preakness Stakes. After finishing second by a neck in 1946 aboard Maine Chance Farm's Lord Boswell, he won the race in 1947 aboard Faultless defeating, among others Phalanx, later to be voted outstanding three-year-old male horse that year.[2][3] The following year he earned another second-place result with Vulcan's Forge.[4] Dodson made his fourth and last Preakness start in 1956, earning third place aboard No Regrets. His association with Calumet came to a bitter end in 1948 when Dodson quit the racing stable after being denied a mount on Citation, soon to win the Triple Crown, in favor of the colt's regular rider, fellow Canadian Albert Snider.
Dodson retired from riding at the beginning of the 1960s but remained in the horse racing industry as a trainer. In 1965, he was the top trainer at Hialeah Park Race TrackinHialeah, Florida.
Douglas Dodson was living in Hollywood, Florida at the time of his death in 1982.
