For the first time in my life, I left a racecourse before the final race. Shocking, I know, but absolutely true.

We went to Sha Tin on Sunday - it's very easy to reach, with its own dedicated tube station which is served only on race days. We decided not to go into the standard enclosure which would have cost $HK10, or about 90p. Instead we splashed out on special tourist tickets which allowed us access to the members' enclosure for the princely sum of $HK100, or about £9. If only British courses charged similar amounts.

The grandstand was a vast concrete structure with views over the small, tight American-style oval track. In the background was a mixture of tree-covered hills and tower blocks standing 50 storeys high - typical Hong Kong scenery in other words.

The facilities were very impressive. There were lots of places to eat, though Katy ended up with chips at McDonalds after turning her nose up at the prospect of something like bean curd and black fungus in an indeterminate sauce. There were far fewer bars than British racecourses, however, and the beer that was being drunk was being consumed through straws.

There were several other differences between Sha Tin and courses at home. One was the sheer number of people dressed in smart blue uniforms whose job was to help visitors such as ourselves with anything from how to place a bet to where to find the toilets.

Another was the vast number of automated betting machines, particularly in the main enclosure - the members' area had a higher proportion of staffed tote windows. Most punters would fill out betting slips which looked much like lottery tickets and just poke them and some notes or a card into the machines and that was that.

In fact, many of the punters never seemed to watch the races outside at all. They just sat at the same seat in the air-conditioned betting halls, glued to the banks of changing odds and watching the race itself on television screens.

This soulless approach was made even more clinical by the fact that there were no bookmakers. Yes, we know that in many ways bookmakers are the scourge of British (and Irish) racing in that they take vast profits out of the industry and put relatively little back into it compared to the tote monopolies which exist in most other horse racing countries.

But without their shouting of the odds and their colourful displays, Sha Tin was a rather grey sort of place. Gone was the thrill of trying to get the best possible odds by shopping around. No excitement of trying to get the last 10-1 about a horse available everywhere else at only 8-1. Everyone got exactly the same odds as everyone else, and if your horse shortened or lengthened in the run-up to the race it made no difference. So you just put your bet on and waited.

And yawned occasionally.

The racing itself was also a bit colourless. Nine of the eleven races were 14-runner handicaps of between 1,200 and 1,600 metres and most of them featured what to us seemed a ridiculously short-priced favourite.

In each race, runners drawn on the outside would be rushed up by their jockeys to get a good position, allowing them to tack over to the favoured inside of the course. After that initial burst of energy, the pace would then slow right down and those behind would catch up. Soon after, it would be the final bend and the horses would gather themselves for the sprint up the home straight. They would fan out across the track and dash for the post - usually with the favourite crossing the line first.

Then it was on to the next event and the next and so on. I suppose that if we were regulars we would gradually see the differences in what was going on and come to appreciate them. But as it was, the racing seemed about as interesting as Southwell on a wet Wednesday in November - but in 80-degree sunshine and with prize money about 20 times as much.

As if you hadn't already guessed, we didn't back a winner. After a while, we stopped betting at all because it just wasn't that interesting - which at least kept the losses to a bare minimum.

And that's why we left before the eleventh race. Hopefully, the Melbourne Cup in just under a year's time will be a touch more exciting.

Richard