Anyone keep their horses on different yards?

[3BayGeldings]

I have two horses, my retired gelding and an ex-racer I have on full loan. Currently they're kept (along with another horse) at a working farm. It's a lovely, idyllic place with tons of grazing in a valley, and large stone stables for whenever they come in. They've spent most of the winter living out and there's still plenty of grass left! They have hay delivered in to the field and have a river to drink from. But, the school there is unrideable so throughout the winter I can only hack at weekends, and to be honest although my ex-racer is perfect to hack, I do miss the chance to school and jump and hack out in company.

So, what I have decided to do is move the ex-racer to a livery yard 15 minutes away, where he'll be on grass livery for the Summer and full livery for the winter, and leave my retired gelding at the farm. I'm thinking that since I won't have to muck out either of them, retired boy will be living out as per, I'll be ok to ride the ex-racer a few evenings a week, and also have the time to still go and check on my retired boy every other day (the other horse's owner will check them the other day).

Anyone else do something similar? Does it work Ok for you? I work full time 8.30 until 5.30 so I'm hoping I don't get sick of spending all my evenings going between two yards - I'm thinking that the combination of full livery/retired horse living out will make things easily manageable?

 

[*hic*]

At one point I had five at home and two 15 minutes away. It was during last year's ice and snow and I was fed up of having all the hassle and not being able to ride so the two went on full livery to a yard with an indoor school. My justification was that it was cheaper to do that than box them over and pay to hire the school three times a week.

 

[Ancient Hacker]

I've done this - got a fab new boy and ended up keeping him on his old yard while I built new stables here at mine. (It took a year!) It was hard going as the other yard was an hour's drive each way.

It sounds perfectly sensible as the horse you ride will only be 15 minutes away, and the retired guy is very suitable digs by the sound of it - just so long as you don't have to DIY at two separate yards, which could be a bit shattering...