special characters - yes. usually these are the unusually strong generals in ancient times. in china, there was actually one general who was so famous that he is worshipped as a deity! (Guan Yu) but until he gets a kickass horse, he did complained that the poor horse was unable to take his weight!

reference:

i dont doubt that noone has ever tried swinging 2-handed weapons on horse, but they probably given up after kissing Mother Earth too many times!