Two more Sharp horses disqualified for levamisole positives

Two more horses trained by Joe Sharp have been disqualified by stewards in Louisiana after post-race samples revealed the presence of a prohibited substance found in a deworming product, adding to a string of disqualifications of horses trained by Sharp over the past six months due to the substance.

The two horses, Palvera and Summer in Saratoga, tested positive for levamisole after winning races on Feb. 7 and Feb. 13, respectively, at Fair Grounds Race Course in New Orleans. Earlier this year, Sharp had eight horses disqualified from races run in December at the same track, and three more horses disqualified from races in Kentucky in November, all for levamisole positives. He also was fined $1,000 for each of the violations in Louisiana, as was the case in the two most recent adjudications.

Sharp said Thursday that he had removed the levamisole products from his barn in mid-December, as he had said following the initial round of positives. In addition, he said that he had the blood of every horse in his barn tested after the first spate of positives and that those tests came up negative.

“It doesn’t add up, but I guess it’s possible that the stuff stays around in a horse’s system,” Sharp said from Louisville, Ky., where his stable is based now. “I’m still scratching my head.”

According to the two most recent rulings, levamisole was detected at a nearly trace level, 1.39 nanograms per milliliter in one case, and 1.52 ng/mL in the second case. Those tests were performed on the horses’ urine samples.

In the initial cases, Sharp waived his right to have split samples tested while acknowledging to stewards that he administered the deworming products to horses in his barn. In the two most recent cases, Sharp asked for the split samples to be tested to confirm the initial results.

“I was shocked as anyone, because I had gotten rid of the stuff three months earlier,” Sharp said. “So that’s why I had the splits tested, when I didn’t the first time. I haven’t had that stuff in my barn since last year. And we had already tested the blood and everything came back fine. And then these pop up in the urine.”

“I’m saying now what I said three months ago. I don’t want to ever see that stuff again,” Sharp said.

Levamisole is the main ingredient in a number of deworming products that can be bought over-the-counter and administered to horses without a veterinary license, and it is not thought to have any significant impact on a horse’s performance. However, it also is a regulated substance in racing because a metabolite of the substance, aminorex, is a stimulant.

Aminorex clears a horse’s system faster than levamisole, so if the post-race sample does not reveal aminorex, that is typically understood to mean that the substance had no impact on the horse’s performance. In both recent cases, according to the rulings, aminorex was not detected in the post-race sample. That also was the case for the other 11 levamisole positives.

Roy Wood, one of the stewards who has adjudicated all of the Sharp cases in Louisiana, said that he and his colleagues applied the same criteria to the new positives as they did the previous cases, contending that the same circumstances applied.

“That was the penalty we thought was merited the first time, so we felt that should apply this time as well,” Wood said.

Asked whether stewards felt that Sharp should be given a harsher penalty considering that the positives came up following the initial spate, Wood said that the positives could have been the result of residual amounts of levamisole from earlier administrations. He also said that the positives were detected in trace amounts, and just days after the earlier Fair Grounds cases were adjudicated.

“It was all happening around the same time,” Wood said.

A number of trainers’ groups and racing regulatory organizations have urged trainers not to use deworming products containing levamisole, due to the substance’s potential to trigger a post-race positive. There are FDA-approved deworming products on the market that are just as effective as the levamisole products, the groups have said.