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.
[1] Deciding that he wanted to try his luck as a jockey, Dodson soon traveled to the Longacres Racetrack in Renton, 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.
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.
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.
[6] In 1951, Dodson became the first jockey to win three editions of the then richest race in Florida, the Widener Handicap at Hialeah Park.