Photograph of Captain Lawrence Oates (1880-1912), standing in front of four Siberian ponies in stalls on board the Terra Nova while two dogs sleep on ground in front. Lawrence Oates - who was to be a member of Scott’s Polar Party - was included in the expedition on the strength of his experience with horses. Unfortunately he was not involved in the selection of the animals, and described those that were chosen as ’a load of crocks’. The ponies hauled the supplies during the early stages of the expedition, but they were ill-suited to the extreme Antarctic conditions.