The traditional Hungarian horse breed, Gidran has been close to the edge of extinction several times. Despite the multiple bottleneck effect, the breed has retained a part of its genetic variability, and performed prominently in carriage driving and show-jumping competitions. Maintaining of the Gidran breed is important in the point of view of world heritage; because besides Hungary, smaller Gidran populations exist only in Bulgaria and Romania. Taking advantage of the special inheritance features of mtDNA, our study focused on two mtDNA regions of Gidran mares. Altogether, 251 hair samples from various Hungarian studs were examined. The analysis was successfully made in case of 251 samples of the cytochrome b and in case of 246 samples of D-loop regions. Because of the distinct mutation rates of the two mtDNA markers, the number of the haplotypes and the way of grouping samples into haplotypes was different. Our key finding was that most haplotypes may be compatible with mare families of the stud book; however incidental mistakes in stud book have occurred only in a few cases. Our results indicate the importance of the preservation and breeding those mare families, which are molecular genetically more diverse than the others, and are in the edge of extinction.