Why not ask ChatGPT what it thinks about humans and horses collaborating specifically on Reining?
June 6 – 8 at the Ancaster Fairgrounds will be our first of our two shows – the Steel City Spin and August 15 – 17 the Steel City Slide will be the second!
But where exactly did the name come from?
Jen and I started grumbling about not being able to travel out of province in mid 2020 when the pandemic was in full flight. We knew everyone else was disgruntled too (and why are we never gruntled in the first place?) – everyone thinking ‘someone should do something’. We realised that indeed, someone did have to do something and if we did not step up then perhaps no one else would.
So mid 2020 we dived in and booked the then show arena at Ancaster for the following August, 27 - 29. This was definitely going to be our first rodeo!
Each week we’d meet up and make a list of what needed to be done and one of the first tasks was to name the show.
We played around with a few names and settled on the ‘Turn Around Slide’. We didn’t love it, but it was the best we had come up with. Then one of Jen’s clients asked – why didn’t we call it the Steel City Slide because Ancaster is part of Hamilton and Hamilton is the steel city! The minute we heard that we just knew it was the right name - we loved it right away.
Photo at Left: Sharon Jones and Jen Jonas
That first show was quite the blur and we were running around the whole time like chickens with our heads cut off. So many things went wonky, so many situations we’d never been in before and didn’t know and had to manage as they were happening but the show was a great success, and clearly – we must have enjoyed it because we booked again for the following year in the new arena which was under construction, not just one but two shows.
We are extremely proud of what we have achieved and learned hosting these shows, the work we put in to them begins in January and doesn’t stop until September.
A hallmark of our shows is the Derby on the Saturday afternoon, and this year is no exception!
Here then is June’s show flyer!
If you’d like to see the whole show bill please visit our website: https://www.jjreining.ca/steel-city-spin-2025
And if you want in on the email list you can join that here: https://www.jjreining.ca/contact
Pro and Non-Pro articles written by Jen Jonas of Jonas Performance Horses (Pro) and Sharon Jones of Be A Better You (Non-Pro). Together, they are J&J Reining Inc. Both Jen and Sharon are believers in continual learning – if you’re not learning you’re not growing.
