Double Jay (horse) on November 2. His performances that year earned him American Champion Two-Year-Old Colt honors. Racing at age three, Double Jay was one of the early favorites for the Kentucky Derby, the first leg of the U.S. Triple Crown series. However, he finished third in an allowance race in April at Churchill Downs and then was fifth in a six-horse field in the Derby Trial Stakes behind winner, Faultless and as a result, was sent off as a long-shot in the Derby. After finishing a distant twelfth in the Derby's thirteen-horse field he did not run in the Preakness and Belmont
Churchill Downs in 1875. His father-in-law, Richard Ten Broeck, was an accomplished horse breeder and trainer, and introduced Clark to horse racing, attending the English Derby at Epsom Downs outside London. Churchill Downs filled a void in Louisville left by the closing of Oakland and Woodlawn, two earlier race courses. The then-rural location was along Louisville and Nashville Railroad tracks, allowing for easy transport of horses. Clark, who preferred longer races to the relatively short ones that had become popular by the 1890s, was running short of funds, and in 1894 sold the track to a syndicate led by William E. Applegate.