At the just-right age of 15, Famous Dillon has quietly become one of the winningest head horses in North America. He’s in rare company as a horse that has won both the BFI (in 2019) and also an NFR go-round (in 2022).
And this past week, “Dillon”—a registered Appaloosa—packed his owner and trainer Jr Dees to roughly $16,000 before Cowboy Christmas even got the jingle bells out.
Dees was already ranked eighth in the PRCA world standings when he split second at Sisters, Oregon, with Landen Glenn for $6,304 a man. Plus, they won Fallon, Nevada, for $2,805 each and placed at Eagle, Idaho, for another $2,667.
“Landen and I have built a pretty good run together,” Dees said. “He’s young and hungry and keeps the fire in me. He throws fast and I like that, because when we catch, we win.”
If their 4.1 holds at Vernal, Utah, for second place, that’ll add another hefty check to push the week’s earnings for Dees alone to around $16,000. All courtesy of Dillon.
“He just scores amazing,” said Dees, 28, of Orange, Texas. “He scores every single time. That’s a trait of a lot of his siblings have—they might be a little hotter or get wound up but no matter what, they always score. And Dillon is so fast he just eats them up.”
Dillon’s blistering speed comes courtesy of his sire. The extended Zancanella family’s stallion Lions Share Of Fame is by Dash Ta Fame (speed index 113) and out of an Appaloosa mare. Dees grew up from a young age with former NFR heeler Matt Zancanella as his guardian and roping mentor.
Back in 2017, Dillon was just languishing in Matt’s mother’s pasture as a 6-year-old.
“He had this knotted-up mane and these big old feet when me and Zanc were there one day, and he said, ‘You ought to take that horse and do something with him,’” Dees recalled. “I loaded him up that day.”
For about the first year, however, Dees said he couldn’t get the gelding to run hard to steers. Finally, in Arizona later that winter, the jets turned on. Dees recalled winning a big jackpot with Nano Garza by a full 4.5 seconds against about 145 teams.
“It was just wild,” he recalled. “I took him to California roping with Cody Cowden in 2018 and Cowdog told me, ‘That might be the best head horse of all-time one day.’ And the next year, every time I’d ride him with Lane Siggins, I’d win first.”
But Dees played heck getting Dillon to run through a rope barrier.
“He kept jumping the barrier,” Dees said. “Wouldn’t go through one forever. Finally, one morning I got mad and strung that sticky tape across the return alley about every six feet and ran him down that alley. That finally got him barrier-broke. And I won the BFI on him a month later.”
That win paid $120,000 to he and Siggins. In fact, Dees and Dillon have made a handful of BFI short rounds together, winning the prestigious six-header in 2019 but also placing third in 2025 and fifth last year. Dillon has raked in a cool $101,500 at the BFI alone over the past seven years.
In 2022, Dees rode Dillon all the way to his second NFR, where over 10 rounds they banked $133,685 turning cattle for Levi Lord. That was the year Dees said 11 of the top 15 headers voted on Dillon to win PRCA Head Horse of the Year. However, Dillon is ineligible for the AQHA-sponsored award because of his Appaloosa registration.
There’s no breed stipulation, however, on the Head Horse of the BFI award. And multiple people this spring liked Dillon for it in light of his flawless work inside Guthrie’s Lazy E Arena.
“Maybe it’s politics,” Dees said. “I honestly don’t know why he never wins it—it doesn’t make sense to me considering he’s made the short round five times and earned six figures there all on his own.”
Lion’s Share Of Fame sired five other horses hauled to the latest BFI, too. Miles Baker, Coleman Proctor, Jhett Trenary and Butchie Levell rode offspring, plus Braden Pirrung placed eighth this year on a daughter.
“Dillon is the easiest, chillest horse that doesn’t care about anything,” Dees said. “I’ll get on him 15 minutes before I’m up and lope two circles and ease him around and he’s ready. But he doesn’t like wagons. If he sees a wagon five miles away, he’ll start shaking.”
Dees credits his Zancanella clan with helping Dillon stay so sound all these years. With Zanc’s brother-in-law Sean Mulligan shoeing and Zanc’s father Paul Zancanella, DVM, looking after the big gelding’s health, it’s been easy. But during Covid, Dees himself learned how to shoe from Mulligan and has been shoeing his own horses ever since.
Those include his old chestnut high-school horse Moonshine for short scores, the bay gelding Chino he bought from Cole Thomas, and another good race-bred jackpot horse that came from Cody Snow. Dees doesn’t have to ride Dillon everywhere. But why wouldn’t he want to?
“I think he loves it,” Dees said. “He’s fun.”