Jules has flown Air Force jets upside down, been catapulted from an aircraft carrier, helicoptered over bubbling cauldrons of geothermal vents, hang glided, parachuted, runs marathons, ridden century bicycle rides, does triathlons, surfed in Hawaii, skis, snowboards, and volunteered to serve in Abu Ghuraib prison. What does a man do when he’s mastered himself, fellow man, and machines? Although a quick learner, after taking Stephanie out for his first lesson in the blue stone ring and trying to post he developed a new found admiration for the athletic skills of jockeys who balance on the balls of their feet in a crouch for an entire race.
When you’re dragging the pegs through a corner on a motorcycle, drifting a car around a track, or pounding through the moguls where one mistake could be fatal –or at the very least somewhat painful, the feedback and intimacy with the terrrain is purely mechanical. Nothing compares to the subtleties and intricacies, nor the need to use both fine motor and gross motor skills to control twelve hundred pounds of living, thinking, muscle, flesh, and bone. Jules is looking forward to the time when he and his steed (or mare) are locked in as one on the hunt and in the ring.
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