Lady Wonder’s first appearance in LIFE came in 1940, when the magazine, as part of a larger story on ESP, related the history of the horse but also reported that it had lost its extra-sensory special powers. The horse could still perform simple mathematics, though, and was at that point merely being billed as “The Educated Horse,” with claims of clairvoyance left by the wayside. Still, the story noted that its ESP expert believed the horse once posessed special powers.

Then in 1952 Lady Wonder returned to the spotlight when she seemingly offered insight to a tragic case involving a missing boy. Here’s how LIFE described her contribution in its issue of Dec. 22, 1952:

A friend of the district attorney of Norfolk County, Mass., went to see her, on a hunch, to ask her for news of a little boy who had been missing for months. She answered, “Pittsford Water Wheel.” A police captain figured out that this was a psychic misprint for “Field and Wilde Water Pit,” an abandoned quarry. Sure enough, that is where the boy’s body was found.

The incident brought national attention to Lady Wonder, and among those who made the pilgrimage to her Virginia farm was LIFE photographer Hank Walker. He captured the mare, then 27 years old, in action, dispensing advice and sports predictions. (For the specific college football picks from Lady Wonder mentioned in the article, the horse was right on only one out of three picks).

Not everyone was buying the act. In 1956 the magician Milbourne Christopher, who was a noted debunker of frauds, visited Lady Wonder’s stable and concluded that the horse was spelling out words under the subtle guidance of Fonda, who was directing Lady Wonder on which blocks to select.

Lady Wonder died the next year.

The 27-year-old Lady Wonder, a horse with purported clairvoyant abilities who communicated answers by flipping letters on a rack, was a popular tourist attraction in Richmond, Va,. 1952.

Hank Walker/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The 27-year-old Lady Wonder, a horse with purported clairvoyant abilities who communicated answers by flipping letters on a rack, was a popular tourist attraction in Richmond, Va,. 1952.

Hank Walker/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The 27-year-old Lady Wonder, a horse with purported clairvoyant abilities who communicated answers by flipping letters on a rack, was a popular tourist attraction in Richmond, Va,. 1952.

Hank Walker/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

“Lady Wonder,” a horse with the purported ability to see the future, came in from the pasture to answer questions for her customers, Richmond, Va., 1952.

Hank Walker/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The 27-year-old Lady Wonder, a horse with purported clairvoyant abilities who communicated answers by flipping letters on a rack, was a popular tourist attraction in Richmond, Va,. 1952.

Hank Walker/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Mrs. Julius Bokkon regularly visited Lady Wonder to solicit the opinion of the clairvoyant horse on matters in her life, Richmond, Va., 1952.

Hank Walker/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Lady Wonder, the purported clairvoyant horse, gave a Massachusetts businessman direction on where to get a loan, spelling out “Heancock,” which was interpreted to mean the insurance company John Hancock, 1952.

Hank Walker/LIfe PIcture Collection/Shutterstock

The tricks of Lady Wonder included performing addition; here she had been asked what 7+6 equalled (she had already pulled up a “1” that is out of view to the left), Richmond, Va., 1952.

Hank Walker/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Owner Claudia Fonda stood by as her clairvoyant talking horse tourist attraction, Lady Wonder, gave a Massachusetts businessman direction on where to get a loan, spelling out “Heancock,” which was interpreted to mean the insurance company John Hancock, 1952.

Hank Walker/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The 27-year-old Lady Wonder, a horse with purported clairvoyant abilities who communicated answers by flipping letters on a rack, was a popular tourist attraction in Richmond, Va,. 1952.

Hank Walker/LIfe PIcture Collection/Shutterstock

Lady Wonder, a horse with supposed clairvoyant powers, attracted visits from tourists and well as regulars such as Mrs. Julius Bokkon, Richmond, Va., 1952. The levers around the horse were like keys in a giant typewriter that it used to communicate its messages.

Hank Walker/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The post Meet Lady Wonder, the Psychic Horse Who Appeared Twice in LIFE appeared first on LIFE.

To celebrate horses now and then, here’s a look back at 25 of the most memorable horses in LIFE’s pages.

Polo ponies at the Peachtree Ranch in Texas, 1939.

Carl Mydans The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Championship horse Seabiscuit after winning the Santa Anita Handicap, 1940.

Peter Stackpole The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A doctor listened to a horse’s heart at University of Pennsylvania’s School of Veterinary Medicine, 1940.

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A Moroccan soldier of the French expeditionary force held the General’s Arabian horse, 1940.

Margaret Bourke-White The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A stallion tried to make friends with a barn cat, 1943.

Hansel Mieth The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A man watched his work horse drink from a water trough, 1944.

Fritz Goro The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Elizabeth Taylor posed with a saddle horse after her smash movie debut in “National Velvet,” 1945.

Peter Stackpole The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

These boys rode their horse to school, 1946.

Bernard Hoffman The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A lucky horse joined the roulette action in Las Vegas, 1947.

Jon Brenneis The LIFE Images Collection/Shutterstock

Gene Autry, astride his horse Champion, surveyed his Ranch, 1948.

Loomis Dean The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The foreman of the JA Ranch, Clarence, Hailey Long, sat with his horse, 1949.

Leonard McCombe The LIFE Images Collection/Shutterstock

Mary Breckenridge ran the Frontier Nursing Service in Leslie Country, Kentucky, 1949.

Eliot Elisofon The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

“Lady Wonder,” a clairvoyant 27 year old talking horse, could count and spell its name by tipping over lettered panels, 1952.

Hank Walker The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

This child could look his miniature horse in the eye, 1952.

Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Baby horses scampered down the stretch at Los Alamitos track, 1952.

George Silk The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The horse sailed gracefully toward its tank in Atlantic City, N.J., 1953.

Peter Stackpole The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Midget thoroughbred filly, Big Bertha, and her mother on Woodland farm, 1954.

Lisa Larsen The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A six-year-old cowboy learned how to shoe a horse, 1954.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

This young girl rode her pony as a colt followed, 1956.

Robert W. Kelley The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

“Misty of Chincoteague,” a wild horse, indulged before returning home to Chincoteague Island, 1957.

Grey Villet The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Harness racing at the All-Russia horse show at the Hippodrome, 1958.

Howard Sochurek The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Trader Horn nuzzled a young friend at Roosevelt Raceway, 1959.

Donald Uhrbrock The LIFE Images Collection/Shutterstock

Israeli children of the Habad sect at a farm village, 1960.

Paul Schutzer The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A troika race at Hippodrome, 1963.

Stan Wayman The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Jimmy the horse rollerskated in front of his farm, 1963.

Joseph Scherschel The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The post Mane Event: LIFE’s 25 Most Memorable Horses appeared first on LIFE.

Months after RFK’s murder, in late 1968, Eppridge took an assignment that was far removed from the madness of the age. He and writer Donald Jackson spent two months chronicling the wild mustangs that still roamed the mountains, canyons and plains of Nevada, eastern Wyoming, and Montana.

“Spending months out there in those vast spaces, photographing mustangs and the people who live and work there, among the horses—that saved me,” Eppridge told LIFE.com, a few months before his death in October 2013. “Bobby Kennedy’s death shook me to the core. Getting out there with [writer] Jackson, traveling that old landscape in a four-wheel-drive pickup truck, helped to heal me, in a way, and got me back into the world.”

One irony worth noting: Eppridge’s photos appeared in a January 1969 issue of LIFE that also featured, as its cover story, an exclusive jailhouse interview with Sirhan Sirhan.

Liz Ronk edited this gallery for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter @lizabethronk.

Mustangs in the wild, 1968.

Bill Eppridge The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Mustangs raced across the Nevada sage, 1968.

Bill Eppridge The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A wild mustang was thrown to the ground for branding, 1968.

Bill Eppridge The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Ellen Williams, Nevada, 1968.

Bill Eppridge The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Mustang, American West, 1968.

Bill Eppridge The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Wild mustang, 1968.

Bill Eppridge The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Mustang and ranch hand, 1968.

Bill Eppridge The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Mustang, 1968.

Bill Eppridge The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Mustang breeder Bob Brislawn, eastern Wyoming, 1968.

Bill Eppridge The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Mustangs of the American West

Bill Eppridge The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Roping a mustang, 1968.

Bill Eppridge The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Mustangs in the snow, 1968.

Bill Eppridge The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Mustangs on a ranch being lassoed for branding, 1968.

Bill Eppridge The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Rounding up mustangs, 1968.

Bill Eppridge The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The post The Mustangs That ‘Saved’ a Shaken LIFE Photographer appeared first on LIFE.