Constable Stefan
Decourcey, is following a trail blazed by his father, Tony, both personally and
professionally.
Tony Decourcey has been
a tireless promoter of harness racing in Fredericton and for almost 40 years he
has been on a mission to introduce the sport that he so passionate about to
families and friends in the City.
He was the Chairman
of the Racing Committee at Fredericton Raceway for several years prior to the
responsibilities of the industry being assumed by Horse Racing New
Brunswick. He is Past President of Fredericton
Exhibition Ltd. and has been on almost every harness racing organization in the
Maritimes as a New Brunswick representative, including the Maritime Provinces
Harness Racing Commission and Atlantic Standardbred Breeders Association.
He was also President
of the Fredericton Horsemen’s Association for a number of years and that
organization enjoyed some of its finest moments under his leadership; raising
money for various projects that benefitted the horsemen and the racetrack, not
the least of which was paving the backstretch barn area. You could always find him and his good
friend, Gus Mazzuca, selling 50/50 tickets, manning the barbeques on race days
or serving up breakfast around the City.
On a few occasions they
would have their good friend, Gardiner MacDougall, head coach of the 4-time CIS
champion UNB Varsity Red hockey team, and some of his players as guests at the
racetrack with the University Cup trophy usually in tow.
 | |
| Gardiner MacDougall, Tony Decourcey, Colin Decourcey and Gus Mazzuca with the University Cup |
His friendship with Mazzuca grew to include a
partnership in race horses and they successfully campaigned the sub-2:00 pacer,
Hurricane Island, among others.
 | |
| HURRICANE ISLAND |
However, it was
Tony’s career with the Addiction and Mental Health Services unit of the
Provincial Government where he was able to do his most rewarding work, by
assisting the clients he cared for through the years.
Shortly after he
retired in 2009, with 35 years of service to the youth and adults who needed it
the most, he was diagnosed with cancer.
With the support of family and friends that he has mentored in his life,
Tony is valiantly fighting the dreaded disease.
Fulfilling the
example of his gregarious and compassionate father, Stefan Decourcey has chosen
a life’s path where he is able to serve the community he loves and grew up in.
He joined the
Fredericton Police Force in 2008 and is a member of the Patrol Response
Division. It is a chosen career he takes
pride in but the newly married constable also takes time to indulge in another
lifelong passion shared by his father - harness racing.
* * * * *
Tony Decourcey and
his brother, Harold, bought their first horse in the mid 1970’s. His name was Mabou River Adios and he went on
to win 38 races during his career and was one of many horses they owned
together.
 | |
| MABOU RIVER ADIOS with Bill Thornton driving and Tony Decourcey |
“Dad had been living in Calgary for awhile and had just returned home when he heard there was a horse sale in Fredericton one weekend,” Stefan said. “He bought him even though he had no barn or equipment and gave him to Phil Sowers. He has owned horses ever since.”
After a few years Tony
acquired his driver’s license and ended up piloting Mabou River Adios a few
times but his first lifetime driving win
came behind Wallace Jones’ Wally’s Pet in 2:11.4 on September 30, 1982. He
rewarded his faithful Fredericton backers that night with a $27.60 win ticket.
He only drove a few more
times through the years, counting three more driving wins but continuing his
knack for getting a “long shot” to the winners circle. In 1983, Happy High Hope returned a $31.00
win ticket with Decourcey driving and Matts Jet paid $14.60 in 1984. The one exception to that came in his final
driving win with Sugar Maker on June 22, 1989 when he was the betting favorite.
 | |
| SUGAR MAKER with Harold Decourcey and driver Tony Decourcey |
Long before he bought his first horse Tony had been a regular around Fredericton Raceway as a youth.
“He used to live in
the O’Dell apartments next to the backside of the racetrack and as a kid he
used to try to talk to the drivers on the track,” Stefan said. “It wasn’t long before he started coming
around the barns and started working for Aurele (Bal) Gould.
“Bal took my father
under his wing and they were together quite a few years. Gould would pay him with a sandwich and a
pop or a dollar for all his work. He
learned a lot about horses from him.”
Decourcey remembers
his father bringing him and his younger brother, Colin, to the track when they
were very young.
“Dad started bringing
both of us around the barn area and we just started tagging along with him
every time I could,” he recalled. “Tis A
Lonewater is the very first horse I remember being really active in and follow.”
Tis A Lonewater was a
two-year-old stakes winner in 1989 owned by Tony and Harold.
 | |
| TIS A LONEWATER |
Decourcey had wanted
his own horse so his father purchased Blaze Down for the then 15-year-old to
learn from.
“She was the first
horse I jogged myself, trained myself and I also had a lot of help from Jimmy
Smith, who we shared a barn with,” he said.
“Dad ended up driving her and finished second a couple of times.”
* * * * *
Tony Decourcey’s
favorite part of the harness racing business is buying yearlings and watching
them develop. It was how he came to
acquire Rulesnregulations, his most successful purchase and the horse Stefan
won his first race with.
“Rulesnregulations
was a late entry to a yearling sale in Halifax,” Stefan remembered, “He was
kind of thin, almost sickly looking but Dad looked at him and saw something he liked. So he bought him.”
Rulesnregulations was
an ordinary horse training down as a two-year-old and never made the races that
year after hurting himself in a training mile.
Still, his father liked the colt for his effort and felt he had the
potential and desire to be a solid race horse.
He was right.
Rulesnregulations won
his first lifetime start the next year in 2:03.4 for driver Mike Downey on
opening day at Fredericton Raceway in 2000.
He went on to a solid sophomore campaign that saw his make numerous
stake appearances, his best effort coming in a second-place finish at
Charlottetown in 2:00 flat. He ended up
taking a record of 2:02.4 for Tom Belmore in his final start of the season,
closing off a successful start to a racing career that saw him earn over $5,100
in his first year.
Stefan was in the process of attaining his
driver’s license during this time and occasionally the horse would be entered
in a qualifier to help him in this endeavor.
Finally on June 27,
2001, he made his driving debut with Rulesnregulations and the tandem finished
fourth to Armbro Supernova, pacing their own mile in 2:00.3. A couple of months later, on September 5,
they hit the winners circle together in 2:03, a seven-length win after a solid
first-over effort. “He just kept racing
better and better,” Decourcey said.
It was a major equipment change a few years later in 2005, though, which helped Rulesnregulations achieve the pinnacle of his success.
“He went from a horse
that raced with hopples, a head check and two headpoles, to a horse with no
hopples, no head check and no headpoles and that happened somewhat by accident,”
he said.
Decourcey always felt
he had the potential to go free-legged but was hesitant to try him that way in
a race. So one day, in a training trip
between races, he took the hopples off and Rulesnregulations went a mile in
2:05. Even after that, though, there was
still some hesitation to race him that way.
When the racing
season ended in Fredericton that fall he was sent to Bernard (Pooker) McCallum
in Truro to race.
“Pooker said,’I’m
going to him qualify free-legged,’ and dad said, ‘No problem,’ so that’s what
he did,” Decourcey said.
Rulesnregulations finished
second in his qualifier, pacing in 1:59.2.
“As a joke, Pooker sent the hopples back to Fredericton and said, ‘You
won’t need these anymore,’” he chuckled.
Rulesnregulations was
a true family horse and epitomized what a tough and classy racehorse should
be. He gave Stefan that first driving win
and brother, Colin, even won an amateur race with him as well. He made 242 lifetime starts and won 39 races,
making him one of the winningest horses ever developed at Fredericton Raceway
in the modern era. He took a record of
1:58.2 for Stefan at the age of ten in Woodstock.
 | |
| RULESNREGULATIONS final win at Woodstock in a lifetime best of 1:58.2 |
* * * * *
Stefan joined the
Fredericton Police Department in 2008 shortly after graduating from the
Atlantic Police Academy at Holland College in Prince Edward Island.
He had been working
on a casual basis for the City of Fredericton in the arenas for a number of
years while completing a Bachelor of Arts degree at St. Thomas University. When no full-time positions opened up with
the City, he began considering the Police Academy when a friend of his decided
to enter the program.
“This was something I
always thought I wanted to do but, until then, I never really had enough
ambition to fill out the forms and go do it,” he said. “I decided to go through the process and see
if I could.”
After being accepted
into the program, he began nine months of training that included eight weeks as
an apprentice in Fredericton.
“I had two coach
officers, Ryan Kelly and Debbie Stafford, who I can really credit with teaching
me a lot of what I know,” Decourcey said gratefully. “They really prepared me
well for the interview portion of the training.
“I had taken the
interview portion very seriously and I understood the importance of it. I wanted to work in Fredericton. It is a good police department and it is such
a competitive place to get a position.”
Decourcey felt like
he had a good interview and, after returning to the Academy to graduate, he
returned home. A few weeks later he received
the phone call he had been hoping to get.
“(Sergeant) Scott
MacKenzie welcomed me to the Fredericton Police Force and when I began work there
I ended up with the same coach officers I had started out with,” he said. “The reason my career has moved forward is
because I have been around so many positive people in the department.”
He feels that
becoming a police officer was something that he was meant to do with his life.
“I remember being a
few weeks into the program and realizing how much I already loved it,” he said.
Decourcey may have
been inadvertently preparing for this line of work while becoming a hockey
referee during his teenage years. He started
out refereeing the novice division in the Fredericton Minor hockey system and
today is an accomplished official at the University level.
* * * * *
Harness racing is
truly for family and friends in the Decourcey barn.
Stefan Decourcey married
his wife, Megan Fowlie, last October and they settled in New Maryland. She works for the provincial government as an
administrative officer for Public Safety and also volunteers at the Fredericton
Police station as a crisis counselor.
Interestingly enough, her family has a history in harness racing as well.
“Her father was originally from Woodstock and he had been exposed to the sport at the track there,” he said. “He had worked some for Earle Avery and the Valley Stables so he already had an interest in horses. When Megan and I met, he started coming around the track and he came to own a part of D Gs Crosby with myself and Robbie Kitchen in 2010.”
A year later, Fowlie and
his daughter purchased three-year-old Royal Putnam, a stakes colt who earned
most of his purchase price back quickly when he finished second in the Bill
Quigg Memorial at Fredericton.
Today, even with
full-time jobs, Stefan, Megan and Colin (who works for the City of Fredericton)
are running the family stable with the help of two relative newcomers to
harness racing, Chantall Basson and 17-year-old Daniel McCullough from Harvey.
 | |
| Chantall Basson, Colin Decourcey, Daniel McCullough, Stefan and Megan Decourcey |
Stefan says they are essential to maintaining the stable.
“Chantall was an
exercise rider of thoroughbreds at Woodbine (Toronto) and her husband, who is
in the military, was posted down here,” he said. “After I met her, I told her about the horses
and invited her to come around the track.
She is one of the best grooms you could ever have and has a genuine
touch with horses.
“Daniel started
coming around through a friend of my fathers.
He had a real interest in horses and wanted to get involved in racing
somehow. He jogs and trains for me and
he bought his first race horse (Prorockative) last year, who won his first
start. He is also doing his high school
co-op program here.”
 | |
| PROROCKATIVE and owner Daniel McCullough |
With Stefan’s busy schedule and a shorter racing season this year, he isn’t finding as many opportunities to drive as he has in the past.
“I still like to
drive but when one of the top drivers is available, I usually use them,” he
said. “When you are paying the bills out
of your own pocket, you try to use the best.
When it comes to horses you always do what is best for the horse and
when you do that you will never have any problems.”
Tony Decourcery still
remains the heart and soul of the stable operation and occasionally he is able
to visit the racetrack he has always loved.
Stefan and Colin are keeping the spirit alive in spite of the
difficulties that the devastating disease has presented their father.
They do it with the conviction
that was bestowed upon them growing up. Serving
others in the community and sharing the joy of horses with family and friends.
Like father, like sons.
* * * * *
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