Trainer Joe Sharp has been suspended 30 days after five horses he trained tested positive for the de-worming medication levamisole in late 2019, according to stewards’ rulings posted on the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission website. Sharp will serve the suspension from Feb. 12-March 13, according to the rulings. The horses that tested positive all raced within a 16-day period at Churchill Downs in November, 2019. All of the horses were disqualified from their races. In all, Sharp has had 15 horses disqualified from races due to levamisole positives in the past year. Ten of his horses were disqualified from races in Louisiana after testing positive in late 2019 and 2020. Sharp has said that for a brief period in November, 2019, all of the horses in his barn received doses of levamisole. Although the drug has legitimate therapeutic uses as a de-worming agent, it also metabolizes into aminorex, a stimulant. Racing regulators and trainers’ groups have urged horsemen not to use de-worming agents that contain levamisole due to its potential to trigger a positive. There are a number of FDA-approved de-worming agents on the market that do not contain the drug. The Kentucky stewards’ rulings noted that Sharp had not been notified that any of his horses tested positive for levamisole after the first positive test on Nov. 14 and then through the last positive test on Nov. 30. The rulings said that Sharp waived his right to split samples. Any horse trained by Sharp during his suspension cannot be transferred to another trainer without the approval of the stewards, according to the rulings. Under a system known as reciprocity, Sharp’s suspension in Kentucky will be recognized by all other U.S. racing jurisdictions. Sharp began training in 2014 and quickly established himself as a high-percentage trainer, with  19 percent and 23 percent strike rates in 2017 and 2018, respectively, according to Equibase records. In mid-2020, he had a brain tumor surgically removed and took some time off to recover.