Brent Dolan and the betting industry both go back a long way by Mary Pitt


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23-years younger version of himself, he notes the date: 12 January 1987. It is his first SIS ID card, issued at the same time Satellite Information Services, suppliers of pictures and data to racetracks, was born. Such company loyalty is a


rarity in today’s employment climate, but Brent has only ever worked for two companies throughout his working life. It’s a solid indication of his passion for and commitment to the worlds of racing and bookmaking.


An Early Start


was a bookmaker. “He’s 84 now and he retired at 73. My father stood at around 30 tracks including Cheltenham and Ascot, and of course, all the Yorkshire courses, trading as ‘Laurie Dolan’.” He continues: “My dad was one of three brothers who were all professional rugby league players, and around 1956 he started mixing bookmaking with the latter days of his rugby career. “I remember going racing with my


dad. I was doing a bit of tic-tac-ing and dad used to put me in Tatts as he used to operate in cheap rings at the time. He used to say to me ‘You go in there and show out to me’ because obviously there were no walkie-talkies or that type of thing back then. It was all done through tic-tac.


Born in York, Brent’s father


rent Dolan takes out a small card from his pocket. Looking at a


around shops having fivers and tenners on, we ended up getting £100 on this horse. This was shared between three or four bookmakers. My dad had £20 on and I had £5. “We bet on the front line in Tatts


and I remember my dad saying ‘Jump on these boxes and watch the race’. We’d taken £120 on the race and we’d laid a £7 to 1 Blue Cashmere. My dad asked me, ‘How’s it going’? And I’m stood on about three or four boxes and I turned to him and said, ‘Dad, it’s absolutely p****d up.’ My dad doesn’t swear and he clipped me saying ‘Don’t swear. How’s it going now?’ “I won £70, plus my wages. That I would say was my dad’s real turning point as a bookmaker. “In 1972 I was at college and


father in 1973. He recalls: “The winner was Blue Cashmere, trained by Barry Hills and ridden by Ernie Johnson. We set out on the Monday. On Monday night we were at Edinburgh races and we made a few quid. Tuesday there was no racing, but we got a phone call that there was a gamble on the Ayr Gold Cup and we must back Blue Cashmere. “We spent most of the day going


Brent Dolan


Picture: Mary Pitt


which I did on a regular basis from 14 until I was 18.”


Sought by William Hill


“So I used to show out to my dad and he used to price up early based on prices from the big ring. That was when you could, as they used to say, nick prices, because he used to see the prices in the big ring via myself. We used to use a code, so we’d add 3 or 4 to the numbers so we only knew what the numbers were. I did that for over a year.


“My dad had an old clerk named ‘Dabber’, who was a great clerk and I used to watch him. One day my dad didn’t have a clerk and that’s when I started clerking,


28 July/August 2010 BOS Magazine


by Hills but it was the right place at the right time and Hills approached my dad when I was 17 to see what I was going to do when I was 18. So I started at 18 for William Hill and worked for them on the racecourse for 13 years, starting at the Yorkshire and Scottish tracks initially before going further south, then for the last four or five years I was with them I was doing all the major meetings. I clerked for Leslie Spencer in the earlier days and latterly for Mickey Burton. I still keep in touch with all the guys I used to work with. They were good days doing 40,000+ miles a year but it was a young man’s job”. There used to be a week of Scottish racing in September that included Lanark, which closed in 1977. Brent remembers going up to the Ayr Gold Cup with his


“I’d like to think I was headed hunted


my mum wouldn’t let me go to Cheltenham because it was exam time. My dad had gone to Cheltenham. I set off for college on Tuesday morning, and finished up at Cheltenham working for my dad. I remember a priest having £50 on a 13-2 shot and I had £50 back at 8-1 a couple of pitches behind us. These are the things I look back on.


to think that’s the way I’m viewed on the racecourse.”


Move to SIS


He has been in a variety of roles at SIS since its inception. “I started out as a racecourse


representative. My job was predominantly working in the north on the tracks, because I knew the tracks. Whereas all the rest of the guys were going out and learning the ring my job was to go out and set the positions up for the first three months. We used to turn up with these big Panasonic mobile telephones. They were massive, everybody used to laugh at us. I wish I’d kept one. It would be in York Museum now!


tracks, making sure the right prices went out and all the information was correct. I even did commentaries of greyhound races. Many of the guys I worked with on


Please mention BOS Magazine when replying to advertisements “Then I had a spell coordinating on


“The one thing about working on racecourses is you’ve got to have integrity, and I would like


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