To say he was bred for the job is an understatement.\u00a0<\/p>\n
His father was a jockey and worked for the powerful Irish stable of Dermot Weld (the first European trainer to win the Melbourne Cup when he sent Vintage Crop from The Curragh to triumph in 1993). His grandfather Peader Matthews won Classic races in Ireland in the 1960s while his brother Barry is a trainer in the United States.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Yet Dolan wasn\u2019t a horse-obsessed youngster, only getting into racing in his teenage years when he was apprenticed to Curragh trainer Adrian Keatley.<\/p>\n
Despite his pedigree, Dolan struggled to make an impact. He rode a handful of winners in five years before making the momentous decision to leave home.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI had about five winners in 100 rides in the time I was there. I wanted a change and decided to come over to Australia.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI was 20 when I left Ireland. I didn\u2019t have any connections, I just came over with the intention of maybe staying for 12 months, getting a few rides and seeing what happened.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Even then his course wasn\u2019t smooth.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI initially came to Melbourne, where I struggled to get a (rider\u2019s) license. The system they have there only allows them to take in a certain number of apprentices, and I missed the deadline, so I ended up going to Sydney.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI was apprenticed to Mark Newnham (now in Hong Kong) and we had plenty of success together.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI was lucky enough to win two Group 1s in Sydney and I won the champion apprentices title twice. I had done a lot already with what I wanted to do with my career.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
But like so many leading apprentices Dolan found the transition to senior ranks difficult. The rides dried up and success proved more elusive.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is very tough. You no longer have the claim and it\u2019s very difficult.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI just decided to make the move up to Brisbane for a change. I had found it tough for a little while to consistently get good rides in town. And mentally I wanted a change as well. Brisbane is very easygoing and it suited my lifestyle.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI just ride for everyone. You ride work, I have a manager that chases rides for me, I could work a bit harder, I know I could, but I think if you are riding well and riding winners, your riding will probably get you rides as well.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The most important things in his life now are Christine, who he met in Australia, and daughter Maisie, who spent weeks in hospital after such an early delivery.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was born at 26 weeks, I think. It was worrying but she\u2019s fine now, she\u2019s good, she\u2019s pretty tough.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to be happy in yourself. You can be successful and still miserable, you have to do what you want to do and makes your family happy, and that\u2019s all that really matters in life.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To say he was bred for the job is an understatement.\u00a0 His father was a jockey and worked…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74547,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[3004,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-74546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-racing","tag-racing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}