Cocoa pictured with Anita, who rescued her from an uncertain future, when she was being used to train rodeo riders in "calf roping". Anita brought her to Kalinvale when Cocoa would not settle down with Anita's race horses in Cairns. Cocoa took more than three months to overcome her fear of humans and continued resist any attempt to touch her legs and feet, preferring to collapse on the ground in terror. Cocoa carried a pack into Hells' Gates in 2003. She gave birth to a colt foal  in 2005 which tragically died the same day. She was dam to " Molly Milo" who will undertake pack training and join the pack team in 2008. Cocoa had a penchant for climbing under fences and visiting neighbouring horses, particularly if they would share their feed. Our neighbours were not very happy with her wandering ways. She settled down and showed signs of having once been a child's pet donkey.

Cocoa was noticed to be off her feed on Tuesday evening (8th January) and checked for ticks. A  paralysis tick was located  behind her offside upper leg and removed. Cocoa was placed in a shelter out of the rain, and rugged to keep warm. She appeared to be recovering during the next two days, even eating a little, but deteriorated very rapidly on the morning of 12 January and collapsed and died of fluid in the lungs within 20 minutes of arrival of a veterinary surgeon.

A sad loss.