Always back the horse named self-interest, son. It'll be the only one trying
Paul Tonkin (no relation to Clayton Tonkin) and Lindsay Rogers are Victorian harness trainers. Both men suffer from chronic pain from incurable back injuries, and each takes a heavy duty medication called Tapentadol to help alleviate the pain that they endure from dawn to dusk and all the time in between. Tonkin and Rogers each […]
A trainer presenting a horse to race when not free of prohibited substances is what’s known as a strict liability offence. As far as guilt or innocence goes there is only the former if your horse throws a positive swab. Even if you can prove from the recordings made by your stable security cameras that […]
Until now it has been accepted by the Stewards, Appeals Panel and Tribunal that Levamisole is only detectable in a swab for less than a week. This elimination time for the drug is based on an otherwise unrecognized study of 3 horses conducted by the the Australian Racing Forensic Laboratory in collaboration with HRNSW, which […]
Sloys Company are a major owner in NSW harness racing. It’s a company run by the Xerri family. They’re not having a lot of luck with their trainers lately. First Michael Doltoff gets disqualified for 13 months over a bute positive. It was his sixth offence. Adam Ruggari takes over for a while but he […]
How long has Harness Racing NSW suspected or known that the ‘safe’ horse wormer Fenbender 100 contains the prohibited substance Levamisole? We have received credible information suggesting that the product containing Levamisole tested by the ARFL lab was purchased from a certain Garrards store by a member of the HRNSW Integrity Team using a company […]
We have written numerous times about the spate of positive swabs to Levamisole that have been recorded in NSW in recent years, and have repeatedly raised the question of why the Hanging State appeared to be the only jurisdiction in which positives to the substance were being thrown. The news published yesterday that the commonly […]
30 October 2025 As a result of a HRNSW investigation, the Australian Racing Forensic Laboratory (ARFL) have detected traces of Levamisole in a sample of Fenbender 100. An image of this product is provided for your information. Until further notice, as Levamisole is a prohibited substance, trainers are cautioned in relation to the use […]
Extract from HRNSW Stewards findings in the positive swab case of trainer Kerry Ann Morris The highest concentrations of levamisole residues were found in the liver in all species tested. In cattle, sheep and goats, at 7 days after treatment, the yeast residues in the liver samples were below 100/g/kg. At 14 days, they were […]
The heavy sentences imposed on licensees by HRNSW continue without pause, with trot trainer Jarred Hetherington the latest to fall victim to the Hanging State. Hetherington’s racing ‘crime’ was, like trainer Rye yesterday, one of his horses throwing a positive swab to cobalt. The threshold for cobalt is 100 ug/L (micrograms per litre) of the […]
We have taken to calling NSW the Hanging State when it comes to penalties for rule breach offenders at the trots, and with good reason too. HRNSW Stewards don’t actually hang anyone, but the sentences they hand down to licensees who break the rules are much harsher than in most other jurisdictions, so the sobriquet […]
