This article is a sponsored feature from Mining.com.au partner Golden Horse Minerals. It is not financial advice. Talk to a registered financial expert before making investment decisions.
Golden Horse Minerals (ASX:GHM) has assembled the largest known consolidated landholding in the Southern Cross Greenstone Belt in Western Australia, undertaking a large-scale exploration strategy aimed at positioning the company as a future gold developer.
Managing Director Nicholas Anderson says the company has consolidated “an extraordinary package of tenure covering more than 1,800km2 with 130km of continuous strike along the Southern Cross Greenstone Belt”, centred on its flagship Hopes Hill Project.
Golden Horse is focused on size and scale, developing a regional strategy with exposure to both advanced brownfields targets and highly prospective greenfields opportunities across what remains a relatively underexplored region.
Located around 300km east of Perth along the main highway to Kalgoorlie, Golden Horse’s flagship project Hopes Hill has held most of the company’s attention through 2025 and into this year.
Anderson adds: “We also have 20 additional deposits which we’ll be exploring and, given the scale and size of this belt, the real opportunity for investors in Golden Horse lies in the broader size and potential of the entire project portfolio.”
“This is the first time a belt of this size has been wrapped up together in Southern Cross.”
With more than $39 million in the bank as of March 2026, Golden Horse is well funded to progress its 2026 plans, covering more than 125km of drilling across its project tenure.
Flagship project advances toward resource definition
Anderson describes Hopes Hill as a historic mill site and near-term gold producer, having historically produced 2.9 million tonnes @ 2.25 grams per tonne gold for 216,000 ounces mined in the early 1990s.
The known mineralised strike currently extends over 1.3km and remains relatively shallow at approximately 50m depth, with the current drilling program designed to significantly expand the known mineralised resource.
“The project was previously tenure constrained to the northwest and south, which is why the previous owners stopped mining,” Anderson says.
“We now own the tenure northwest and south, as well as the main pit itself, and with the current drill program of 125km, 23km of that will be diamond drilling focused on this area.”
The diamond drilling at Hopes Hill is focused on bringing that flagship asset into a resource, with the remaining 100km of reverse circulation drilling spread across a number of other assets on the tenure.
Anderson notes that in 2025, the company completed a significant amount of work in building the resource base in Southern Cross.
“We did more than 40km of drilling last year across 220 holes, predominantly into Hopes Hill, with some extraordinary intercepts that came out of that.”
Key highlights from 2025 include 83m @ 2.5g/t gold from 103m, 61m @ 2.5g/t gold from 91m, 24m @ 2.8g/t gold from 95m, and 3m @ 23.8g/t gold from 193m.
This year, Golden Horse’s aggressive drilling program is extending deeper and wider.
“Results so far are showing that this system continues at depth, given that we’re still hitting grade 340m below the historic bed,” Anderson says.
“What we’ve done this year is started drilling further north and south of Hopes Hill to really test the extensions there.
“We’ve had some extraordinary intercepts come out of the neighbouring tenure to the north and the south, demonstrating that this strike does continue and that the pit will extend beyond the 1.3km that was previously mined.”
As previously reported, the company’s first diamond drill hole to the north of Hopes Hill intersected 16m @ 6.8g/t gold from 115m, including 1m @ 98.4g/t gold from 130m within a broader zone of 8m @ 13.1g/t gold from 123m.
Visible gold was also observed within the footwall lode, 830m north of a previous hole, with follow-up drilling planned to further test the lode.
Golden Horse has noted that the area has the potential to be a “significantly larger gold system than previously recognised”.
“So far, we’ve drilled around 34,000m in Q1 this year,” Anderson says.
With results still with the lab for assaying, the company will update the market as more results become available.
Key to the success of Hopes Hill is also its access to key infrastructure, with Anderson noting that it has its own processing centre and tailings facilities right on site.
As Golden Horse continues to build up the resource, the plan is to commence both Scoping and Feasibility Studies towards further building the company’s own infrastructure in order to create a central processing centre for the entirety of its tenure in Southern Cross.
Satellite projects broaden exploration footprint
Golden Horse is exploring the full potential of its assets, with Anderson sharing that the company will put out a “regional exploration program update” shortly. The said update will list out the company’s projects, outlining the drilling plan and sequence for the coming months.
The company has already begun drilling across these other assets, starting with Hakes Find in the south and Marionete up north.
At Hakes Find, Golden Horse has been targeting shallow mineralisation for toll treatment at third-party plants.
Anderson notes that drilling at Marionete is “following up some extraordinary initial drilling from last year”.
Golden Horse hit more than 300m of mineralised strike at Marionete, including 10m @ 6.8g/t gold from 5m and 5m @ 5.6g/t gold from 11m.
Additional plans for 2026 at these satellites include reverse circulation drilling at the Golden Valley Group, covering Baby Queen, Violet, and Colreavy; and Paddocks, which comprises more than 750m of gold-in-soil anomaly and is planned for Q2 2026 drilling.
“We’ve been pretty bogged down on the success we’ve had at Hopes Hill, and we now want to step back and go a bit broader to keep the momentum going,” Anderson says.
Part of that momentum really involves the market push to demonstrate the size and scale of the potential across the Southern Cross region, as well as the opportunities Golden Horse can bring to regional development.
An undervalued growth story
Golden Horse Minerals is entering a pivotal phase in 2026, with several milestones shaping its trajectory across the Southern Cross Greenstone Belt.
The company is currently awaiting further assay results from its aggressive drilling program at Hopes Hill and across its regional projects, which are expected to provide further clarity on extensions at depth and along strike.
Building toward a maiden resource remains a key milestone, though timing is not yet defined, given the open-ended nature of the mineralisation to the north, south, and at depth.
With mineralisation continuing in multiple directions, Golden Horse is focused on defining the cutoff area before locking in a resource estimate.
At the same time, the Southern Cross region is experiencing a surge in activity, with assets changing hands and new entrants becoming active after years of relative quiet.
Golden Horse’s consolidated tenure positions it at the forefront of this resurgence, with the largest land package in Southern Cross serving as a strategic differentiator.
The company’s strong capital position ensures it is well funded to sustain its extensive drill program and deliver consistent news flow on the back of current exploration work.
Anderson also confirms that management is actively exploring merger and acquisition opportunities aimed at further expanding Golden Horse’s regional footprint and consolidating additional strategic assets.
Despite the significant progress achieved to date, Golden Horse believes the company remains undervalued relative to the scale of its landholding, drilling success, and the broader opportunity emerging across the Southern Cross belt.
With continuous drilling, strong funding, ongoing news flow, and potential future expansion of its project portfolio, Golden Horse is positioning itself as a long-term growth story within Western Australia’s gold sector.
Write to Amy Rotman at Mining.com.au
Images: Mining.com.au, Golden Horse Minerals
