NEW ORLEANS – Two more horses at Fair Grounds have tested positive for the prohibited drug levamisole, one of them Silver Dust, who had his victory in the Jan. 18 Louisiana Stakes taken away because of the bad test. Trainer Bret Calhoun agreed to pay a $1,000 fine and Silver Dust was placed last in the Louisiana after stewards notified Calhoun late afternoon this past Friday of the test result. Had Calhoun not agreed to the penalties, Silver Dust would’ve been scratched from the Mineshaft Stakes here on the Saturday, Feb. 15 card, a race he won. The first public indication something had happened with Silver Dust was a mid-card announcement Saturday that the gelding would carry 118 pounds in the Mineshaft instead of the 122 assigned at entry time. The race was run under allowance conditions and the disqualification changed the assigned weight. The other horse with a positive test also raced Saturday, Blackberry Wine, who pressed the pace and faded to seventh in the first division of the Risen Star Stakes. Joe Sharp trains Blackberry Wine and Sharp earlier this month paid $1,000 fines and lost purses after eight of his horses, seven of them winners, tested positive for levamisole. In overnight races at Fair Grounds, only the winner is tested after every race, though up to three so-called “special” tests are requested by stewards during a racing program. Blackberry Wine’s bad test came after he won a Jan. 18 allowance. The other Sharp positives tests all came in December, and Blackberry Wine is the only horse from the Sharp barn since Dec. 28 to trigger a positive test. Sharp, like Calhoun, was informed of the bad test Friday, agreed to the penalty, and was permitted to start Blackberry Wine in the Risen Star. The December tests detected levamisole in blood, but the two more recent tests found it in urine, according to Fair Grounds stewards. Calhoun is married to Sharp’s mother, Sara Escudero. The two trainers’ barns at Fair Grounds are adjacent. Levamisole is commercially available for use as a dewormer in cattle, sheep, goats, and pigs, according to information on the medication disseminated by the Racetrack Medication and Testing Consortium (RMTC) and is regularly used, off-label, for treatment of equine protozoal myeloencephalitis (EPM) in horses, according to the RMTC posting. The Association of Racing Commissioners International (ARCI) classifies it as a Class 2 (b) medication, a drug “with a high potential to affect performance,” because it can metabolize in a horse into aminorex, a potent stimulant listed as a Class 1 drug by the RMTC. No trace of aminorex was found in any of the positive tests in Louisiana, according to Fair Grounds stewards. In private hearings with Fair Grounds stewards and in public comments, Sharp said he purchased levamisole to use as a dewormer on his horses. Calhoun, reached by phone Saturday morning, declined to comment regarding Silver Dust’s positive test, but Fair Grounds stewards – which hadn’t yet published a ruling on the two horses as of Sunday morning – treated the Calhoun positive the same way as Sharp’s. No suspensions were handed to either trainer by the stewards, who declined to refer the rulings to the Louisiana Racing Commission. The ARCI recommends a 15-day suspension for a first offense in the Class 2 (b) category but stewards took mitigating circumstances presented in Sharp’s hearings into account when deciding to restrict penalties to fines and disqualifications. Medication alerts regarding levamisole have been issued for years by the RMTC and other organizations, such as the Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association, because of the danger of aminorex metabolism. The RMTC urges horsemen to conduct their own testing on any horse administered levamisole before entering it to race since there’s uncertainty regarding how long the drug remains in a horse’s system. Moreover, it remains unclear why levamisole, which is readily available at feed and tack shops, would become a dewormer of choice since there are many other less fraught deworming medications intended for horses and comparably priced.