Wellington-Based Tota Comfort System A Leap Forward In Headgear For Horses By Deborah Welky
Word is spreading quickly between barns, behind the scenes and along the sidelines at Wellington’s equestrian venues about the Tota Comfort System for horses. In less than a year, the nosebands and bridles designed by Charles Tota of the Dressage Connection have revolutionized tack that has been in use for thousands of years. A rider himself, Tota grew up alongside a father, who was a master carpenter and “Italian perfectionist,” and he has been intrigued by design ever since he was a boy. “Everything my father did had to be perfect, and that’s the way I look at things, too,” said Tota, already wellknown in equestrian circles for his expertise with saddles. “No matter what it is, I want it to be better. I see so many products on the market that weren’t completed properly, where the stitching is not right, where I can see the shortcuts they’ve taken.” In his Wellington shop, Tota carries only the highest quality products imported from Europe; saddles he designed, then commissioned from German craftsmen, and other equipment that he would put on his own horse. Tota’s strong reputation is what prompted one frustrated Olympic rider to call him with a problem. The Olympian’s horse had developed such an aversion to its headgear that the mount could not be ridden. “They were having tremendous issues with the pull and TMJ in the horse to the point where it resisted having its bridle put on. It had become tremendously sensitive,” Tota recalled. “I worked with the veterinarian, who showed me the medical diagram and explained what needed to be done regarding the facial nerves.” He learned which parts of the horse’s face to stay away from. “Now, we redesign bridles all the
time, but this one took about a month and a half of different prototypes,” Tota said. “We kept fine-tuning it and modifying it and, over the course of the next six months, we came up with this whole new system.” Necessity had, once again, become the mother of invention. “Initially, we started out with just the noseband, trying to make the horse comfortable using the client’s existing bridle, but the functionality wasn’t working,” Tota explained. “That’s how we ended up designing an entire bridle line — the noseband, the bridle, the whole package. We submitted it to the FEI, and it was approved in under two weeks. They saw the medical background — it wasn’t a training gimmick
The Dressage Connection’s Charles Tota is the creator of the Tota Comfort System. PHOTO BY EQUINIUM SPORTS MARKETING
or a wacko invention with a high-profile rider to sponsor it — it had medical guidance and approval.” The Tota Comfort System works because its unique, contouring cheek piece relieves pressure along the poll and facial nerves of the horse. When traditional bridles put pressure on the poll and temporomandibular joint (TMJ), the natural connection between the horse’s mouth and the rider’s hands
wellington the magazine | march 2017
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