Bred by John W. Stanley in Lexington, Kentucky, he was purchased as a yearling for $19,000 by Wilmington, Delaware businessmen James V. Tigani and James Boines who raced them under their newly formed partnership, Ridgewood Stable.
Trained by Walter "Duke" McCue, as a two-year-old, Double Jay won six of ten starts.
Racing at age three, Double Jay was one of the early favorites for the Kentucky Derby, the first leg of the U.S.
After finishing a distant twelfth in the Derby's thirteen-horse field he did not run in the Preakness and Belmont Stakes.
Racing at age four and five, Double Jay's most important win came in California in the 1949 American Handicap in which he equaled the track record of 1:48.60 for 1+1⁄8 miles (1.8 km) in the year when the race was run at Santa Anita Park.