About the Designer

The idea for the Bambach Saddle Seat came to occupational therapist and horsewoman Mary Gale in treating patients who could not sit unsupported on an ordinary seat or wheelchair. Mary found that the same patients could sit independently on horseback in a balanced, symmetrical posture.

It occurred to Mary that if she could replicate the saddle position, where the spine is able to assume its natural curves, she would create an ideal seat for therapy as well as for task seating.

A review of literature validated Mary's thinking. Dr A. C. Mandel noted that the ideal sitting posture for the human spine is achieved on horseback. Other researchers concluded that ordinary furniture removes the natural curves from the spine and places stress on the spinal discs. Mary also came upon anecdotal reports from horse riders who suffered severe back pain on the ground, yet who gained marked relief when mounted in the saddle.

Mary Gale is a graduate in Occupational Therapy - Sydney, NSW. She continued her post-professional studies and practice in a variety of settings, including in-patient, vocational, psychiatric, and rehabilitation environments. During this time she also pursued her lifelong interest in horses. She appears here with trophies, medals and ribbons she won during her competitive riding career.

Mary not only has theoretical understanding of the working back while seated but the day to day understanding of what works for a person who has a back problem. At age fourteen her horse fell on her and damaged her back so much so that she has had to have to laminectomies.

While practicing in the rehabilitation department of Hornsby Hospital in Sydney, a young woman asked Mary to take her horse riding even though she suffered serious physical injuries due to a car accident. Mary - never one to reject a challenge - set up riding for Julie. This was so successful that the doctor in charge referred many recovering patients for riding therapy. Every second Sunday for the next eight years, Mary took a youth group of disabled people horse riding under the auspices of the Sisters of Mercy.

One question kept begging to be answered. Why could a seriously disabled person sit unaided on a horse yet have to be tied into a wheelchair on their return to hospital or home?

When Mary resigned from the hospital to work in her father's cable factory, she met an engineering undergraduate looking for a supporting topic for his final thesis. Mary suggested a combined study of the interaction between a wire winding machine he had designed for the factory and the seat on which the operator sat. Mary's work with this engineer, another occupational therapist and a physiotherapist led to the Saddle Seat and discovery of its benefit to the human body when seated to work.

Mary is now chairwoman of the group of companies her father founded. One of these is The Bambach Saddle Seat Pty. Ltd.