SARDINIA LETTER: When you think of Irish-trained challengers for the Cheltenham Gold Cup, the Mediterranean island of Sardinia is probably not the first thing that comes to mind, writes Paddy Agnew at the Sardinian art festival.
Yet, there is a link and it concerns the lineage of Beef Or Salmon, the rising young star of Irish steeplechasing, who fell early in last March's Gold Cup. He had been expected to make a race of it with the reigning English champion Best Mate.
The link comes by way of the sire of Beef Or Salmon, a stallion called Cajetano who now earns his honourable and taxing trade on the lovely island of Sardinia. That connection, and indeed a whole series of other not entirely expected links with Ireland, form the heart of a week-long arts festival that began last Sunday in the little Sardinian town of Padru, about 40 kilometres inland from Sardinia's celebrated Costa Smeralda.
Entitled "Islands - Sardinia and Ireland", the festival brings together not only 18 contemporary painters (nine Irish and nine Sardinian) but also Sardinian and Irish traditional musicians. In addition, the festival on Friday will be dedicated to the Sardinian and Irish horse-breeding industries.
When many of us think of Sardinia, images of the Costa Smeralda spring to mind. We think about its famous part-time residents such as the Aga Khan and Italian Prime Minister Mr Silvio Berlusconi, just two of the many VIPs who have luxury summer villas in the area close to Porto Cervo.
We think also of luxury hotels where suites can cost up to €40,000 a night and where Holywood superstars and famous footballers sunbathe by the swimming pool and pretend to be annoyed when the paparazzi come by to get a snap of them in their togs.
There is, however, another Sardinia, an inland rural Sardinia peopled by farmers and mountain people for whom the biggest preoccupation is not the latest haircut sported by David Beckham but rather how to curb the "Blue Tongue" plague that has done serious damage to the island's sheep herd.
Since prehistoric times, Sardinia has had a mainly pastoral economy. Even today more than half the island (the second biggest in the Mediterranean after Sicily) is suitable for grazing, long summer heat notwithstanding.
For those of us who live on the mainland (Sardinians speak of "the continent"), Sardinia is synonymous with good sheep's cheese such as Fiore Sardo.
Padru, whilst close to the coast, is one such rural Sardinian community. People from the town find work either in the forestry services or, in the summer season, in the tourist trade on the coast.
This week's festival, masterminded by Padru mayor Mr Antonio Satta and promoted behind the scenes by former Italian president and active hibernophile Mr Francesco Cossiga, is a modest attempt to remind people, both potential tourists and not, that Sardinia is about more than sand and sea.
The mayor says the "agri-turismo" trade (farmhouse holidays which often include horse-riding) does well around Padru. He hopes that this week's exchange with representatives of the Irish horse industry such as Ms Mary McCann (former Irish Horse Board member and owner of the Hartwell Stud, home to famous stallion Cruising) will help people in the trade in these parts.
As for the nine Irish artists - Peter Behan, Fionnula Collins, Anne Donnelly, Breda Ennis, Elaine Leader, Katherine Liddy, Maeve O'Keefe, Laurence O'Toole and Brian Smyth - they will be taking part in the fifth edition of Padru's "Premio Internazionale di Pittura".
For once, the visiting artists will be expected to do more than merely exhibit their work by day before being wined and dined by night.
The good burghers of Padru have invited the visiting artists to come up with some sort of work during their two- or three-day stay in Sardinia, work that will take its inspiration from their new-found surroundings and work they will be expected to leave in Padru by way of a thank you. One wonders just how the artists will respond to this "command performance" call.
Given the Beef Or Salmon connection, who knows if one of our young artists might not take an equestrian inspiration for their work? Whatever they come up with, the Irish artists and indeed all the Irish visitors to Padru this week are sure to enjoy themselves.