java强制类型转换问题

android training中的bitmap讲解中有这么一段代码：

static class AsyncDrawable extends BitmapDrawable {
    private final WeakReference<BitmapWorkerTask> bitmapWorkerTaskReference;

    public AsyncDrawable(Resources res, Bitmap bitmap,
            BitmapWorkerTask bitmapWorkerTask) {
        super(res, bitmap);
        bitmapWorkerTaskReference =
            new WeakReference<BitmapWorkerTask>(bitmapWorkerTask);
    }

    public BitmapWorkerTask getBitmapWorkerTask() {
        return bitmapWorkerTaskReference.get();
    }
}
----------------------
private static BitmapWorkerTask getBitmapWorkerTask(ImageView imageView) {
   if (imageView != null) {
       final Drawable drawable = imageView.getDrawable();
       if (drawable instanceof AsyncDrawable) {
           final AsyncDrawable asyncDrawable = (AsyncDrawable) drawable;
           return asyncDrawable.getBitmapWorkerTask();
       }
    }
    return null;
}

这里的drawable强制转换为AsyncDrawable，为什么这里的父类转换为子类asyncDrawable.getBitmapWorkerTask()不是返回null。