Sorry to disagree Kev. It is a performance enhancer if it has turned up in a swab, you can be sure of that. HRNSW pretty well spelt that out two years ago.

https://www.harness.org.au/media-roo...nkews_id=39451

It will also be interesting to see the outcome of KerryAnn Morris's positive to levamisole. I've sold plenty of levamisole products over the years for worming chooks, birds, sheep and cattle for round and tape worms. If it is found in a horse's swab it has been administered off-label. All named levamisole products registered with the AVPMA are either oral or pour-on drenches. It is NOT approved for use on horses. Apart from having narrow safety levels in horses it is thought to, or known to, metabolize into other performance enhancing substances in horses.

I suspect it masks these substances, which is why it is banned.

David Aiken copped a $5000 fine in 2018 after one of his horses returned a positive to levamisole at Shepparton trials. HRNSW issued a Notice to Industry pointing out the fact that levamisole is a class 1 drug and is banned and carries a MANDATORY 5 year disqualification. No doubt the KerryAnn / Peters Jr & And Morris defence will cite Aiken's fine as a more suitable penalty but if HRNSW notified all licences it is 5 years then it should be 5 years. It will be interesting to see how the image-senstive HRNSW handles a matter involving one of it's poster children.

And Amanda will, no doubt, be thumbing through the pages of the crooked trainers' encyclopaedia of implausible excuses. Lightning does strike twice around her stable.