Image of a man carrying a horse on his shoulders is shared with a false narrative - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
February 26, 2021
A post accompanying the image of a man carrying a horse on his shoulder is being shared on social media platforms. The claim with the message is that this man saved the life of a horse from a snake-bite by carrying it on his shoulders for 3 miles to reach a hospital. Through this article let’s fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: Man saved the life of a snake-bitten horse by carrying it on his shoulders for 3 miles to reach a hospital.
Fact: The man Dmytro Khaladzhi carried the horse just to display his strength and his ability to do so. He is known for performing extraordinary feats like bending a metal rod with his teeth and carrying a fully-grown horse, getting run over by heavy trucks, etc. News articles also reported the same. The narrative of him saving the life of the horse is falsely being associated with him. Hence the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
Reverse image search of the photo in the post led us to a 2017 New York Post news article that published the same image. As per the article, the image shows Dmytro Khaladzhi, a Ukrainian strong man who is known for performing extraordinary feats like bending a metal rod with his teeth, carrying a fully-grown horse, getting run over by heavy trucks, etc. From this article, we can infer that he carried the horse just to display his strength but not save the life of a snake-bitten horse.
Taking a cue from the article, a YouTube search with relevant keywords led us to a YouTube video in which he can be seen lifting a horse.  Most probably, the image in the post might have been picked from here. Even from the description of the video, it can be inferred that Dmytro Khaladzhi lifted the horse just to display his strength, but not to save its life as claimed in the post.
Further search led us to an episode of ‘Ukraine’s Got Talent’ on YouTube in which Dmytro Khaladzhi can be seen performing a few of the above-mentioned feats. A biography on the website of the film ‘Ivan the Powerful’, in which Khaladzhi played the title character provides some more information about him.
To sum it up, image of a man carrying a horse on his shoulders is shared with a false narrative.