The is a Grade 1 Ban'ei horse race, held in Obihiro, Hokkaido, Japan for four-year-olds and up. The full name is (Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Award, Ban'ei Kinen).
The race is the championship race held at the end of the season (March), with the highest weight and prize money among all ban'ei races. The race was initially held in Kitami, Asahikawa, Iwamizawa and Obihiro on a rotating basis. In 1988 the Ban'ei Kinen was fixed at Obihiro.
The winning time is rarely less than three minutes and it many cases it can take 3âÂÂ4 minutes. In some cases, the winning time can be 5 minutes or more. The Ban'ei Kinen has one of the longest average finishing times of Japan's public competitions. Since 1977, there have only been six times (1979, 1980, 1992, 2012, 2021, and 2022) that the winning time was less than 3 minutes. Due to this, the Ban'ei Kinen is sometimes called "the world's longest 1 furlong race".