SINGLE G 167 



prepared him for the ensuing campaign and who started him 

 first at North Randall, the opening meeting of the Grand 

 Circuit where he set the world's record for a three-heat race 

 by winning all three heats in 2:0014, 2:0014, 2:0114. At 

 Kalamazoo he entered the select list with a heat in two-min- 

 utes flat in a race which he won from Napoleon Direct. He 

 had won at Detroit the previous week, pacing a heat in 

 2:0014. His Kalamazoo victory was destined to be his last, 

 but one, for the year. That was the season in which Napoleon 

 Direct was at his best and while the Indiana warrior was 

 good, he did not have the lick necessary to beat the great 

 Geers pacer who defeated him in all the eight races which 

 followed Kalamazoo. 



At the second North Randall Grand Circuit meeting, 

 Curt Gosnell met with the accident which resulted in his death 

 and his great pacer went into the stable of Walter Cox, 

 the New England reinsman. driving him in all his races 

 the rest of the year. Gosnell drove him in three winning 

 and two losing races and gave him his first two-minute record. 

 Cox was able to force Napoleon Direct to pace many miles 

 close to two-minutes but the fastest heat he won with him 

 was in 2:02^, when he beat Ben Earl at Lexington. In 

 Gosnells hands he forced Napoleon Direct to a record of 

 1 :59''^, at Columbus. It is doubtful if Single G ever raced 

 more gamely than during the season of 1916. He was try- 

 ing, nearly every week, against one a trifle superior to him 

 in point of speed, yet that campaign does not appear to have 

 disturbed him at all nor lessened his splendid courage. 



He was ready for the fray early in the season of 1917. 

 The previous fall he had been sent to Fred Jamison, who 

 brought him out for the races in splendid form and who 

 raced him all year, the first time since the horse was a three- 

 year-old that the fortunes of war had permitted him to be 

 in the care of one trainer an entire season. This was in no 

 sense due to changing notions of the owner but was because 

 of circumstances over which he had no control. The desper- 

 ate sickness of Curt Gosnell had caused one change of 

 drivers; his untimely death had caused another and another 

 untimely death, that of Fred Jamison, was to cause still 



