As star mare Encipher recovers from a broken leg, owner-breeder Tyson Linke is looking ahead to her next chapter.

Linke confirmed the five-year-old had run her last race after last week’s successful surgery on a broken pastern sustained during her win in the Group 2 Alabar Bloodstock Ladyship Cup at Melton on January 27.

“I spoke to the Ballarat clinic on Friday. It all went well. It was a spiral fracture so they put in four screws to stabilise it," Linke said.

“She went back to Emma’s (Stewart) place (last) Friday where she’ll be boxed for six weeks and then, hopefully, be well enough to go out in the paddock.

“Ideally, she’ll be good to get in foal later in the year. It’s been a long week getting over it all, but at least everything has gone as well as possible.”

Linke has put some early thought into which stallion Encipher could visit first.

“We’re going to watch how Tall Dark Stranger’s first crop of two-year-olds go in the US and then there’s the likes of Art Major and Sweet Lou as well,” he said. “But the focus for now is just to get her well again.”

The Kadina-based Linke bred and raced Encipher, sending her to Stewart and Clayton Tonkin before she debuted.

“I just thought she was a bit different and deserved every chance,” he said. “I’m so lucky they took her and did such a great job with her."

While Encipher’s biggest win came in the inaugural $2.1mil TAB Eureka back on September 2 – when she gunned down Leap To Fame – Linke said the most special was the Group 1 Pryde's EasiFeed Victoria Oaks at Melton on October 8, 2022.

“The Oaks is a classic and Dad (Ross) and I are into breeding fillies and mares, so to win an Oaks, especially the Victoria Oaks, is sort of the ultimate,” he said.

“But there were so many great wins along the way. That Eureka night was something else. To beat that field and on such a big night for the sport, that was great.”

Beating Leap To Fame has stuck with Linke.

“I said to Dad the other day, we’ll do that, we’ll send her to Leap To Fame when he retires to stud in a couple of years,” he laughed.

Encipher raced just 30 times for 18 wins, seven seconds and a third.

Remarkably, she became Stewart’s first $1 million earner with that Eureka victory. She finished with $1,635,479.

Premier driver Kate Gath, a former Port Pirie girl, fittingly drove Encipher in 23 races for 13 wins.

“I’d have to say the Oaks was probably the tops for me, too,” she said. “I hadn’t won a Victoria Oaks before that and I know how much it meant to Tyson, who had been a big supporter of mine. The win had a few layers to it.

“The other win that really struck was that last lead-up to the Eureka when she beat the boys, including the likes of Rock N Roll Doo, Act Now, Better Eclipse and others, in the free-for-all at Melton. It set up her Eureka win and showed she’d gone to the next level.

“Obviously I couldn’t drive her in the Eureka (because Gath was on her own horse Catch A Wave) but it didn’t surprise she came out and caused that upset.

“It showed she would’ve been very competitive with the right run in any of these big races, like the Hunter Cup the other night. I'm incredibly lucky to have been given the drive on her so many times.

"I drove Ladies In Red once, but for horses I've driven regularly, Encipher is in a league of her own as the best mare."

Linke was at Melton last Saturday night and admits to a few moments of wondering what if.

“She was nominated (for the Hunter Cup) and Luke (McCarthy) was down to drive her, so she would’ve headed to it,” he said. “But it wasn’t to be and we’ve got so many great memories to look back on and, hopefully, lots to look forward to with her as a mum.”