The 31-year-old, who rose to international fame in 2015 after becoming the first female jockey to win the Melbourne Cup, was yesterday ousted for a month.

Her suspension came after a urine test conducted at the Swan Hill Cup meeting on June 11 detected the presence of a banned appetite suppressant.

Payne – in sharp contrast to so many other athletes who return positive tests – promptly pleaded guilty to the offence and told stewards: “I’m embarrassed and I apologise for what I have done.”

No doubt her impeccable reputation as an ambassador for women in a traditionally male-dominated sport will suffer a small hit.

Regardless of her motivations for taking the drug, Payne did the wrong thing. But she has been swiftly and suitably punished and her career will resume in four weeks’ time.

Payne’s case does, however, highlight an issue that the world’s sporting bodies are going to have to confront sooner rather than later. Integrity is everything in sport and performance-enhancing drugs – rivaled only by betting-based corruption – is its biggest threat. It is no secret that the war on doping is being lost, despite ever more stringent testing regimes and new drugs added to the list of banned substances all the time.

But an argument can be made that too much time and money is being spent chasing offenders at the lowest end of the doping spectrum, while the more calculated and sophisticated dopers continue cheating unchecked. No one could argue that Payne’s detection represents a significant victory in the fight to eradicate banned drugs from the sporting landscape.

Not when entire countries, such as Russia, are able to operate widespread and allegedly state-sponsored doping regimes involving hundreds, if not thousands, of athletes.

It is a confronting proposition, but do we actually need to relax – rather than toughen – anti-doping laws in order to truly level playing field? Perhaps every athlete caught taking substances readily available over-the-counter in many countries merely represents a false victory.

Why not limit the number of banned substances to those that are truly performance-enhancing, rather than just performance-enabling?

- Ross Tyson, deputy editor