Our History

Stubbylee's History

We purchased our first borzoi in 1983 as a wedding anniversary  present for each other. From Margaret Manning, Manitias Orange Rose was 2 years old and bought as a companion for our rescue Afghan. We showed  her at open shows and agricultural shows before breeding our first  litter in 1985, mating Rosa to Ch Pasquinel Picador.

From this litter we  kept two puppies, a bitch Stubbylee Fiery Kyzita & a dog Stubbylee  Happy Fella. Kyzita was very successful at Open Shows winning many Best  in Shows and Best Puppy in Show awards. Happy unfortunately broke a bone in his hock when young preventing him being shown. 

Trivia -The affix  Stubbylee is derived from the name of the local park where we exercised  our dogs

In 1987 we purchased our second borzoi from Margaret Manning, Manitias Lacovia at Stubbylee  who was to be the foundation of the Stubbylee lines. She was mated to  Johnson & Laycock's Ch Diamond Edge of Enolam. From this mating we  kept one bitch Stubbylee So Chic, probably the best borzoi we have bred. Never shown as much as we liked she won 2 CC's before dying suddenly  whilst still in her prime. This litter also produced Ch Stubbylee Shades of Night, owned by Pat Heys, who became the first Stubbylee Champion.

We purchased  Sholwood Solon Morn from Richard Duckworth. Ross had a promising show  career as a puppy but cut his pad which required stitching. Displaying a typical borzoi attitude he decided it was too much trouble to wake up  from the anesthetic. Sholwood Silver Merchant was brought in from a  repeat mating that produced Ross. Ziggy was mated to Lacovia giving us  Wolf Seeker, Haute Couture and the aptly named Song 'n' Dance.

Kyzita was also  mated to Silver Merchant, sadly all but one of the pups she produced  were lost, the remaining dog Stubbylee Ivan went to Chris & Rob  Binnington.

Chic was mated to Ch Cranog Caerleon in 1995, her pups arriving on Christmas Eve. We planned to keep1 dog & 1 bitch from this litter but as we both preferred  different dogs we compromised and kept Stubbylee  Spellbinder, Stubbylee Enchanter & Stubbylee Enlightenment. This turned out to be a wise decision as Spellbinder went on to gain his UK, Irish and International titles - the first UK resident borzoi to  achieve this feat. Enlightenment also gained her Irish title and 2 CC's  whilst Enchanter won 1 CC and 2 RCC's.

We bought  Starborough River Romance in 1997 but Twiggy never took to the show ring and has only been lightly shown in the UK & Ireland. Twiggy also  decided that being mated was not for her far preferring a comfortable  life interspersed by occasional camping holidays.

Continuing our  breeding plans Elle was mated to Dermot Drum's Ir Ch Mariinsky Rothbart. Again we kept 3 puppies Aine (Isa), Aoifa (Leaf) and Cuchulainn  (Hoolie). Hoolie had a very promising show career as a puppy but  tragically died at 14 months old. Leaf was shot by some moron with an  airgun whilst young and never fully recovered from the trauma. Two dogs  from this litter were purchased by Mike Warr, Stubbylee Oisin and  Stubbylee Ruaden handled in the ring by Liz. Oisin  won 1  CC and 4 RCC's.

We purchased Luka in 2005 from Ritchie & Gill Kitchener, her lines complementing ours and bringing back in some of the Manitias lines at the back of many of our dogs.

After a lengthy break from breeding our next litter was in 2007 when Luka was mated to Jazz. Although this was a mating we always intended but it happened sooner than planned as Luka & Jazz took things into their own paws both managing to open doors for a tryste under the conifers. This was the litte rthat produced Fiwelds of Gold (Rush), Wintersmith (Zorro), Morning Star (Star) & Jazz Diva (Diva).

Morning Star was named after a small star like marking in the middle of her back like Venus in the morning sky - and also because Morning Star was a lethal weapon in the Middle Ages. Wintersmith was named after the title of a book by Terry Pratchett

At the end of the year Jazz was also mated to Manitias Adarka who produced a litter on Christmas Day  providing an interesting post Christmas lunch entertainment. Sadly only 2 puppies survivied of which we kept one Magic Moments (Magic)

Magic Moments was named after the song which was the theme tune to Liz’s fathers magic act

Our first Border Collie arrived in 2008, Andrew had always liked the breed so we bought him Leo as a 21st birthday present. Initially Andrew’s plan was to do agility and a bit of showing. Pondeboys Reddy Teddy Go from a mating of a Detania dog & bitch was purchased from Angela Robinson.  Andrew became more & more involved with showing and in 2009 we jointly purchased Tonkory Vivacious (Tia).