SINGAPORE — To play an equine trainer in the drama 3 Wishes, which debuts on MediaCorp TV Channel 8 on Monday, actor Thomas Ong — who is more of a dog person — had to overcome his initial awkwardness around horses.

To do so, he spent a week filming at a stable.

“At first, I kept imagining the horse rearing and whinnying, as in The Lone Ranger,” he said. “People said, ‘Don’t walk behind the horses because they might kick you’. So there was a bit of fear. And at the start, it was like, ‘Wow, this horse is huge. And his mouth is huge. And his teeth are huge’.”

However, he soon learnt that his worries were unfounded and that horses can be gentle creatures. “When I was feeding them, I was thinking, ‘Will they bite my fingers off?’ (But) when they take carrots from your hands, they don’t bite you at all. It’s strange. Maybe the horses they got for me were all very friendly,” he said with a chuckle.

By the time filming ended, he and the horses had bonded. “When they said, ‘We won’t be back here after tomorrow’, I felt a little sad,” said Ong. “(The horses had) walked along with me, stopped when I asked them to, came over when I had food for them and sniffed me whenever I approached them. Like dogs! So sweet. I realised, ‘Actually, maybe handling horses isn’t that different from handling dogs!’

“They were great to be around.”

While Ong had an equine epiphany, his character in 3 Wishes also has his eyes opened through the experience of being granted wishes that eventually come with a price. “The story examines human greed,” Ong explained. “There’s really nothing free in this world. If you gain something, you might lose something. It makes you think.”

And there is nothing Ong himself would wish for except for getting “more good scripts such as this one”. “It allows me to experience a different life and inspires people to think,” he said. “I hope my shows will be thought-provoking.” May Seah

Catch 3 Wishes starting Oct 27, weekdays at 9pm on MediaCorp TV Channel 8.