My horse Three Fires has F energy, but I haven’t raced her since February the 28th. I haven’t worked her since March 24th, either. But now it’s April 30th, and I was just wondering if I was being impatient, or if something was actually wrong.
I too have 3 horses that have F Energy , yet they haven’t been worked out or raced in over 10 days each?
The first thing I would want to know is how much the horses have been worked previously. You have to realize that there is a margin of error built into the energy and fitness ratings. If you are doing automated training, and not checking you may be wearing the horses out. Being at F for a week is not totally unusual. I had it happen a few times usually after races. I do not set up an automatic training schedule so I’ve never seen an F rating while I’m strictly training a horse.
Three Fires was shipped a LOT (even if it is just to the local track and back, it still takes something out of them each time). And raced twice in a week. That probably put her energy way negative (energy can go below 0), and with the continued workouts, she never had a chance to regain the energy. Now she’s (slowly) regaining it, but it’s going to take a while.
I’d ship her back to the farm (she’ll regain energy slightly faster there). Wait until her energy rating’s at A/B level and then send her back to the track to get fit again.
Oh…okay, thank you. I didn’t think it would take energy, but I should have asked or read more closely before I started shipping. Thank you [again] and next time I’ll try to make sure I know what I’m doing before I start to click buttons. 
Yeah, I glanced at her in the database, and it would’ve taken you 7 months of rest at the farm to get her energy back to normal levels. (I was nice and boosted her energy level a bit, though it’s still really bad.)
So yeah…word to the wise: don’t overwork your horses (and especially don’t race them twice in one week!!!)
I have had same problem with Highland continental who has been at F energy since 21st march and has shown no variation around that figure. he has had 2 very minor workouts since then to see if any jockey comments would be forthcoming but no luck. This is the horse that has a doppleganger in my taxes page (highland continent) and who gets all the credit for any earnings so i don’t know if he’s stealing Continentals energy away!
THANK YOU Shanthi!
I’ll be sure to never do that again!
This is quite normal, since horses can take anywhere from 5-25 days to recover. One of my horses has a slow recovery rate too, and all you have to do is just be patient. And make sure that you don’t do any shipping/training/racing when horses are at F energy, so that they’ll recover faster. 
Note: Horses can take 5-25 days to recover 100 percentage points of energy (i.e. go from 0% energy to 100%). If your horse is stuck at -75% energy, it will obviously take longer to get to 100% again.
Curious question:
Will a horse ever run itself into negative energy for a race, or do they just stop at zero as having given all their energy? I’m assuming the latter…that you can only dip into negative energy by forcing a horse to work when they’re already at zero or by shipping them then. How does it work?
No, horses can go negative through racing…it’s the whole “giving 110% effort” sort of thing. The horse will, of course, slow down once it reaches 0% energy but if the race is 10f and it gets to 0 energy at 9f, it’s not just going to stop running and not finish the race.
Ah, gotcha.
Thanks for explaining. 
That explains why the “F” level of energy seems to last longer than all other levels after a race.
My filly Derby Appeal raced on 3/10/11 and hasn’t been worked since then, but her energy is still an F as well and hasn’t flucuated at all.
Derby Appeal http://www.finalfurlong.org/viewhorse.php?horse=4600
OK, how many times do I have to say it? Horses ONLY lose energy by:
- Racing
- Training
- Shipping
If your horse has been at F energy for weeks, it’s because it basically tanked energy-wise and needs a long layoff to recover.
It is NOT a bug to have low energy for a long time.