Horse racing has this certain association to it.
Growing up beside a racetrack, I thought I understood all there was to this image. It’s a sport with many faces. The sleaze of gambling lubricated with readily available alcohol is the dark side, backing the full moon wonder of seeing shadows racing in the morning mist for training. The cold tragedy of horses going down on the track goes hand in hand with the care and attention of their trainers and grooms in the paddock. It’s both elite and mass entertainment. It’s somewhat confused by its own gender image, attempting to both cultivate an old-fashioned premise of being a “safely macho manly space” whilst appealing to “female” attendance. Typically, somehow, this means “advertising a race day with anything but the actual horse racing.” Above all, it’s all about sweaty, muscular, animal speed.
The exception takes place in Hokkaido, at the Obihiro Race Course. The sole home in the world of Banei racing, here it’s actually part of the race for the competitors to take a strategic break to relax and recalibrate in the middle.
2013 Banei-Kinen Kanesa Black.jpg
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In Banei, it’s not just speed that is put to the test, but the horse’s strength and force of character. The winner is not the horse that first sticks its nose past the post. It’s the horse that first drags the back end of its iron sleigh over the line following an up-and-down course of two hills along a 200-meter track.
Table of Contents
ToggleWelcome to the World of Banei
The kanji for Banei, “輓曳” is comprised of two different kanji for “to pull.” Usually seen in the context of something being pulled by animal power, they’re both rarely used in 21st-century media. Official Banei publicity writes the term in the phonetic hiragana syllabary. (In other words, Banei racing using looks like this in Japanese: ばんえい競馬.)
Banei racing presents a totally different spectacle from what you’d think of as horse racing. The horses are draft horse breeds, also known as ‘heavy horses’ or ‘coldblooded’, as opposed to the ‘warmblooded’ thoroughbreds of speed racing. As crossbreeds of Breton, Percheron, and other foreign heavy breeds with the local Hokkaido dosanko horse, Banei horses can weigh over 1000kg — double the average thoroughbred. The sleigh they pull can be anywhere between 500 to 700kg depending on the race grade. The biggest race of the season, the Banei Kinen, sees horses older than 6 years pulling 1000kg along the course. Watching the horses struggling on their knees to get up and over the hills creates a very different kind of drama.
Primed for Success
Covid-19 has steamrolled through many industries like a charging one-ton banba stallion. Yet one industry that’s seen surprising success in this period has been horse racing; more specifically, municipally operated horse racing, such as Banei at Obihiro. While ticket sales for horse racing operated by Japan Racing Association remained steady, municipal horse racing boomed. Online sales between April and September 2020 even increased 1.3 times over the same period in the previous year. [1]
The trend of increasing ticket sales for Banei has been put down to the rise in online betting. Whilst JRA races still took 30% of their ticket sales from cash, municipal horse racing like Banei – often broadcasting from racetracks with low physical attendance – had become almost entirely digital betting events. When Covid-19 hit, municipal horse-racing venues like Obihiro were already well-equipped to run audience-less meets. As pachinko businesses and keirin (cycle racing) were put under restrictions, easy-to-access online Banei racing and other net-based horse racing events became the go to for gambling during the pandemic.

It’s a curious bubble of success. Horse-racing the world over is seeing a decline in social relevancy, disappearing from newspapers and TV, as machines pick up the slack of literal horsepower. It’s become easy to meet urban individuals who have never seen, let alone touched, a horse in the flesh. Banei’s recent popularity has been met with mixed degrees of optimism. Online betting sites taking a cut of the earnings aside, Banei has seen boom and busts before. Imagining that this success could be just another bubble is prudent rather than pessimistic.
A Course of Ups and Downs
Banei became a public sport in 1946. The idea behind the post-war government recognizing and encouraging municipal horse racing was to incentivize breeding draft horses, scores of which had been lost in the war. Increasing the number of workhorses was seen as a crucial part of the strategy to revitalize agricultural production. Ongoing food shortages and famine made this an urgent issue. It also gave those horse breeders who had been working specifically to supply horses for the war hope for future business. [2]
For a good decade after the war, horses were undeniably interwoven with daily human life. Circa 1953, when there were already four official Banei racecourses in Hokkaido, draft horses were still being used in Sapporo’s streets to pull carriages in the summer and sleighs in winter. Goods transportation and rubbish collection were all done with draft horses. It’s thought that in 1954, in a single day, there were around 1000 horses in Sapporo going about their businesses alongside their humans. [3]
Like many other leisure pursuits that presumed excess cash to splash, Banei’s peak takings came in the final years of Japan’s economic bubble. 1990-1991 saw ticket sales raking in at around 30 US billion yen a year. Post-Bubble, however, was a different story. Despite designation as a ‘Hokkaido cultural heritage’ in 2004, Banei slipped into so much red that four racecourses dwindled to three, then two. At last, in 2007, only the Obihiro racetrack remained.
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Obihiro intended to keep the Banei race course going as part of their local tourist trail, but maintenance of the course was an ongoing difficulty. Online betting – and Rakuten Racing’s generous donation in 2013, in light of Banei’s online betting’s success – truly changed the sport’s fortunes.
A Heavy Sleigh
In 2012, Mayor Yonezawa of Obihiro said that Banei racing needed to be preserved as an “important cultural heritage” of Hokkaido. He claimed that the sport was a means of “communicating the history of colonization to the present day,” and was vital for local revitalization [4].
And he’s right. Colonizing Hokkaido was an actively pursued Meiji-government-backed initiative, which didn’t simply fall happily into place as the natural order of things. Banei serves as a blatant and undeniable reminder that ‘cultivating’ Hokkaido involved the importing, imposition, and invention of a ‘Hokkaido’ way of life that was designed to be different from whatever the indigenous Ainu were imagined to be living by.
If Banei is a metaphor for itself, then colonialism is the weighted sleigh it drags behind it.

A Tool of Colonization
There is a good case for arguing that, without these heavy horses, the ‘opening up’ of Hokkaido would have been impossible. The Ainu word for horse, ‘unma’ is derived from the Japanese ‘uma’. This signifies the association between the Edo-period Wajin (mainland Japanese) and the horses whose power they employed to conduct their business. Horses left behind on Ezo (the old name for Hokkaido) by Wajin merchants went feral; these became the local ‘dosanko’ type that were initially used for heavy work. [5] Draft horses were later introduced to Hokkaido by the Meiji Hokkaido Development Commission (aka the Hokkaido Colonization Office) with the aim to speed up lumber transportation, coal digging, and the clearing and plowing of areas for agriculture. [2]
According to the Banei Horse Racing Organisation, Banei began as entertainment for Hokkaido settlers, mainly farmers and lumber-workers. To let off steam from the difficult day-to-day of settler-colonialism, one form of entertainment was to tie two horses together in a tug-of-war to compare their strength. This then evolved to attaching sleighs to the horses with various numbers of humans on board, before coalescing into a shape similar to the one we know today with weighed sleighs. [2]
Whilst draft horses were also used in Aomori, the use of sleighs is unique to Hokkaido. In something of an experiment, agricultural practices promoted by the Development Commission in Hokkaido were modeled off those of the USA. Requiring agricultural machines and the large animals to make them work, the Commission imported draft horses from the US for this very purpose. The sleighs, however, came from elsewhere. [3]
The Colonization of Hokkaido
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The Russian Adaptation
The first recorded horse-sleigh purchase by the Hokkaido Development Commission was from Russia via the Karafuto (Sakhalin) Development Office in 1874. Unlike the human-pulled Japanese sleighs in the north-eastern prefectures, the Russian sleigh was specially designed to work with large animals and avoid being buried by snow. The design was so difficult to replicate that the Development Commission eventually had no choice but to employ three Russian carpenters to supply settlers with the tool and to develop it into something fit for local purpose. [3] Between Russian sleighs and American-style farming, Hokkaido colonizer practices took on a form all their own.
Statue of Percheron Irene.jpg
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The Grandaddies of Banei
What becomes clear through Banei and horse-aided agriculture in Hokkaido is the role of international trade and connections in the Hokkaido colonization process. Instruction in one-man, one-horse plowing and other techniques are ascribed generically to ‘foreigners’, but we can assume an American influence from the sources of the agricultural technology. [5]
The effort to breed bigger and more powerful local draft horses owes a lot to three Percheron stallions imported from France in 1880. One of these three, called ‘Irene’, weighed around 740kg. Although not notably big by today’s standards, at the time the horse was perceived as so large that there were genuine worries that he would crush any mare he was put with. (Since Irene is now known as ‘The Father of Banba’, so there were, happily, no issues with producing issue. [5]) These massive French stallions serve to prove the point that Banei’s history offers an interesting window into how Japan deployed its access to the rest of the world in maximizing its Hokkaido efforts.
Banei, therefore, reminds us that ‘developing’ Hokkaido was a state-sponsored and concerted process in which Japan leveraged all resources it had at its advantage versus the island. It’s valuable for remembering that nothing about the northernmost island being ‘part of Japan’ was a natural, predestined, or foregone conclusion.
A Sport with Hills Ahead
Japan’s economy aside, Banei’s future course has two major hills to overcome.
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In June 2019, Obihiro’s municipal government announced that, for the first time in Banei’s history, the sport would be accepting foreign-born grooms. [6] Flat-racing had already seen similar relaxation in regulations and saw the recruitment of Japan’s first Indian grooms.
Banei might be facing its biggest obstacle yet in the form of Japan’s depopulation, and Hokkaido’s provincial youth drain problem. For all that the Banei business is booming, each year is seeing fewer people around to take care of the horses. The ones who are around are also becoming too old to wrestle with animals sometimes ten times their weight. On top of that, the techniques for making Banei racing gear are being lost as craftsmen become too old and lack for successors to inherit their knowledge. What were once equipment pieces tailor-made to fit specific horses are being reused in modified fits for new generations. While this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it is a little sad in its implications. [7]
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Modern Challenges for a Meiji Sport
The sport’s other challenge will be in engaging with its online audience. Under the increased scrutiny of internet video and social media, Banei will need to work harder to walk its talk of embodying an ideal of teamwork and effort between horse and human.
The sport came under fire in April this year after jockey Suzuki Keisuke was captured kicking a horse in the face when it was down on its knees, trying to overcome a hill. [8] This sparked an online furor in which some animal rights activists and self-professed animal lovers accused the sport of cruelty. Industry officials sought a reasonable justification but were unable to produce something satisfactory to the majority. A predominantly urban online audience, many of which have rarely, if ever, had to handle an animal larger than an Akita dog would not be sympathetic to arguments of thick skin and necessary rough-handling. (This author has heard this many times at stables, and is of the opinion that kicks to the face, in the horse’s blind spot, goes beyond ‘rough handling’).
The argument that the kick was done out of ‘desperate love’ [8] for the horse might not be entirely unreasonable. In the 21st century, there is no real work for the draft horse in Hokkaido, aside from Banei racing and becoming horse meat. Plowing, transporting lumber, and digging up coal have been handed over to machinery. To race, to be eaten, or to be retired to a petting zoo if lucky, are all that remains for these descendants of the animal partners of Hokkaido’s colonizers.
The least we can do is coexist with and treat them with dignity, finding joy in these horses’ feats of strength. Communication and understanding, empathy and compassion, between horse and human are often said to be invaluable in guiding the winning team over the obstacles to victory. The same might be said of this unique sport regarding its future concerning Banei and its new audiences.
References
[1] Miyake. R., (2020). Korona baburu? Chihō Keiba, Uriage Zekkōchō no Igai na Riyū. [A Corona bubble? Municipal horse-racing, a surprising reason for its sales success]. The Sankei News. October 24. [Accessed 28 October 2021]. Viewed at: https://www.sankei.com/article/20201024-2IAZBPKDIVNLLGB764SGBGWAEQ/
[2] Satō, T., (2017). The Banba Banei Tokachi 2007 – 2016., p.28-29. Obihiro Agricultural Administration Unit Banei Promotion Office. April 21. [Accessed 28 October 2021]. Viewed at: https://banei-keiba.or.jp/dl/pdf/ebook/10th_thebanba/p028_029.pdf
[3] Inoue. M., (2019). Hokkaido 150nen Hokkaido Indekkusu Ezo kara Hokkaido he – Dōgu 4 Uma Sori. [Hokkaido 150 years – Hokkaido Index: from Ezo to Hokkaido Tool 4: Horse Sleigh]. Asahi Shimbun Digital. March 27. [Accessed 28 October 2021]. Viewed at: http://www.asahi.com/area/hokkaido/articles/MTW20190327011680001.html
[4] Nagasawa. T., (2018). Konnichi mo hashiru ‘Banei Keiba‘: Sekai de yūitsu, uma bunka wo nosete. [Still going strong today ‘Banei horse-racing’: Unique in the world, carrying horse culture]. Nippon.com. September 12. [Accessed 28 October 2021]. Viewed at: https://www.nippon.com/ja/column/g00590/
[5] Satō, T., (2017). The Banba Banei Tokachi 2007 – 2016., p.86-89. Obihiro Agricultural Administration Unit Banei Promotion Office. April 21. [Accessed 28 October 2021]. Viewed at: https://banei-keiba.or.jp/dl/pdf/ebook/10th_thebanba/p086_089.pdf#view=FitV
[6] Suzuki. H., (2019). Foreign residents get permission to jockey for jobs in traditional Banei Horse Racing. The Mainichi Online. June 7. [Accessed 28 October 2021]. Viewed at: https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20190606/p2a/00m/0na/020000c
[7] Satō, T., (2017). The Banba Banei Tokachi 2007 – 2016., p.54-55. Obihiro Agricultural Administration Unit Banei Promotion Office. April 21. [Accessed 28 October 2021]. Viewed at: https://banei-keiba.or.jp/dl/pdf/ebook/10th_thebanba/p054_055.pdf#view=FitV
[8] Hosokawa. K., (2021). ‘Uma Musume‘ Daininki no Keibakai de Aitsugu Fushōji – Doubutsu Hogo Dantai ga ‘Ashikeri Jiken’ wo Keiji Kokuhatsu. [Deplorable events continue in Horse-racing industry popularised by ‘Uma Musume’ – Animal protection organisations complain that ‘Kicking Incident’ should be criminal]. Gendai. April 30. [Accessed 28 October 2021] Viewed at: https://gendai.ismedia.jp/articles/-/82642?page=1
Other useful sites:
一般社団法人 ばんえい競馬馬主協会
平成25年4月14日更新 帯広市【北海道十勝】で開催されているばんえい競馬馬主協会ホームページです。