Bob Duncan, credited with revolutionizing the starting-gate experience for horses while working on and eventually heading the New York Racing Association gate crew for five decades, will be honored with a Special Eclipse Award for Career Excellence, it was announced Wednesday. Duncan will be presented with the award at the 55th annual Eclipse Awards ceremony on Jan. 22 at The Breakers Palm Beach in Florida. Duncan, who grew up in Elmont, N.Y., began working at the NYRA tracks in 1967. After a two-year stint serving with the U.S. Army in Korea, he returned stateside to become an assistant starter to Frank Calvarese. In 1993, he succeeded Calvarese as NYRA’s head starter, a position Duncan held until his retirement in 2004. He remained a consultant for NYRA and continues to provide his services to private racing stables. Duncan is acknowledged for having come to the realization that common practices of using fear and intimidation to get horses into the starting gate were counterproductive and counterintuitive. Duncan came up with a kinder, gentler approach. :: Access the most trusted data and information in horse racing! DRF Past Performances and Picks are available now. “Horses respond to good leadership,” Duncan said in a press release put out by the National Thoroughbred Racing Association. “Once we started communicating in a language that the horses understood, they responded calmly, and their performance improved. By watching horses, you learn how to connect with them. The key is to set aside your ego and any urge to dominate the horse. They are prey animals, and dominance just doesn’t work. "We used to think we were heroes just to get the horses into the starting gate, but we didn’t realize the price that the horses were paying and, in turn, how it hurt their connections and the sport.” Todd Pletcher, an eight-time Eclipse Award winning trainer, said Duncan “revolutionized” the starting-gate experience for horses.  “He was the first to introduce more humane, behaviorally informed practices in his running of the gate-schooling and starting-gate program, establishing a model now emulated internationally,” Pletcher said in the release. “He led the charge in urging the industry to use natural horsemanship not only at the gate but throughout all elements of the training, racing, and breeding process.  “What began with smaller changes like limiting the use of buggy whips and blindfolds, turned into a complete overhaul of the current system focusing on bringing in the practices of Monty Roberts, Pat and Linda Parelli, Ray Hunt, and the like to create calm horses at the gate and build a safer environment for all involved.”  Duncan’s methods soon caught the attention of international trainers and he was asked to work with trainers such as Aidan O’Brien and Gai Waterhourse.  In later years, Duncan worked with the starting gate crew at Churchill Downs and started the 2006 Kentucky Oaks and Kentucky Derby. In 2009, Duncan worked with the Pletcher-trained Quality Road, who was fractious and unruly while being loaded for the start of the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Santa Anita Park and had to be scratched.  After receiving a call from Pletcher, Duncan came to Belmont Park to work with Quality Road in the starting gate.  “I just took him in the stall with my rope halter and spent 15 minutes with him, moving him back and forth, and connecting with him,” Duncan said. “He was almost instantly responsive.”  In 2010, a calmer Quality Road won a trio of Grade 1 stakes in the Donn Handicap, Metropolitan Handicap, and the Woodward Stakes, as well as the Grade 3 Hal’s Hope.  Upon hearing the news of his Eclipse Award, Duncan said, “This is not something that normally happens in our discipline. There is so much joy and satisfaction to this process – handling the horses in this way – that it’s like winning a little Eclipse Award every morning." :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.