diff --git a/src/c_api.cpp b/src/c_api.cpp
index b214703aab0e..52ee9c2e5901 100644
--- a/src/c_api.cpp
+++ b/src/c_api.cpp
@@ -2121,6 +2121,9 @@ int LGBM_BoosterCalcNumPredict(BoosterHandle handle,
 
 // TODO in future versions of LightGBM, public API named around `FastConfig` should be made named around
 // `SingleRowPredictor`, because it is specific to single row prediction, and doesn't actually hold only config.
+// At the same time, one should consider removing the old non-fast single row public API that stores its Predictor
+// in the Booster, because that will enable removing these Predictors from the Booster, and associated initialization
+// code.
 int LGBM_FastConfigFree(FastConfigHandle fastConfig) {
   API_BEGIN();
   delete reinterpret_cast<SingleRowPredictor*>(fastConfig);
diff --git a/tests/cpp_tests/test_single_row.cpp b/tests/cpp_tests/test_single_row.cpp
index 14dc1aa55488..ade8d9c82a5f 100644
--- a/tests/cpp_tests/test_single_row.cpp
+++ b/tests/cpp_tests/test_single_row.cpp
@@ -5,17 +5,11 @@
 
 #include <gtest/gtest.h>
 #include <testutils.h>
-#include <LightGBM/utils/byte_buffer.h>
-#include <LightGBM/utils/log.h>
 #include <LightGBM/c_api.h>
-#include <LightGBM/dataset.h>
 
 #include <iostream>
 #include <fstream>
 
-using LightGBM::ByteBuffer;
-using LightGBM::Dataset;
-using LightGBM::Log;
 using LightGBM::TestUtils;
 
 TEST(SingleRow, JustWorks) {
@@ -26,10 +20,6 @@ TEST(SingleRow, JustWorks) {
     result = TestUtils::LoadDatasetFromExamples("binary_classification/binary.train", "max_bin=15", &train_dataset);
     EXPECT_EQ(0, result) << "LoadDatasetFromExamples train result code: " << result;
 
-    DatasetHandle test_dataset;
-    result = TestUtils::LoadDatasetFromExamples("binary_classification/binary.test", "max_bin=15", &test_dataset);
-    EXPECT_EQ(0, result) << "LoadDatasetFromExamples test result code: " << result;
-
     BoosterHandle booster_handle;
     result = LGBM_BoosterCreate(train_dataset, "app=binary metric=auc num_leaves=31 verbose=0", &booster_handle);
     EXPECT_EQ(0, result) << "LGBM_BoosterCreate result code: " << result;
@@ -150,7 +140,4 @@ TEST(SingleRow, JustWorks) {
 
     result = LGBM_DatasetFree(train_dataset);
     EXPECT_EQ(0, result) << "LGBM_DatasetFree result code: " << result;
-
-    result = LGBM_DatasetFree(test_dataset);
-    EXPECT_EQ(0, result) << "LGBM_DatasetFree result code: " << result;
 }