Horse-riding must be part of the attractions of the hotel that commissioned the versatile pioneer artist Khaw Sia to paint four huge mural-sized works about different related themes. It must have been a luxury-class hotel to have within its precincts open grassland dotted with trees and the lapping waves on the seashore nearby. As depicted are riders on horsebacks, probably hotel guests, of different generations and sexes, having a go on the bridle. They don’t look like pro equestrian riders as they are not in riding attire with safety helmets. So the six riders heading inland are having a lark of a leisurely trot, but they seem to be handling the horses reasonably well. Khaw Sia had the distinction of informal tutelage under the great British watercolourist Sir William Russel Flint in London in 1933, apart from formal training at the great Sin Hwa Art Academy in Shanghai (1925-1932). By the  1950s, he had achieved such impeccable standard that his works were accepted in the Le Salon Paris, the Royal Institute Galleries Summer Salon in London, and the London National Society exhibition. He was accorded a posthumous Retrospective by the Penang State Art Gallery in 1998. Born in Shanghai, Khaw Sia migrated to Penang with his family in 1937, and had his first solo there in 1955. Though adept at painting various subjects in a variety of media, Khaw Sia was also an avid orchid cultivator and painter, winning him the sobriquet Orchid King.