Longshot Wins the Champion Stakes : Santa Anita: El Atroz pays $88.40 for half-length victory against California-bred 3-year-olds.

The rain stopped in the nick of time for El Atroz.

After finishing last on a muddy track at Bay Meadows in December, the 3-year-old gelding had a new trainer and a new jockey Sunday on a drying-out fast track at Santa Anita, and he responded with a half-length victory in the $109,850 California Breeders’ Champion Stakes, paying $88.40 as the longest shot on the board.

“I wished I had been smart enough to bet something on him,” trainer John Sadler said after he saddled El Atroz for the first time. Jose Silva, a Northern California trainer, had sent the horse to Sadler shortly before Christmas after he had won twice and had two thirds in six starts at Bay Meadows and Golden Gate Fields. Two of Sadler’s exercise riders are Silva’s nephews, and the trainers have exchanged horses before.

In El Atroz’s previous race, the Cardiff Stud Handicap at Bay Meadows on Dec. 13, he was bet down to 5-1, but floundered in mud and finished 10th, beaten by 15 1/2 lengths.

“I didn’t know what this horse would do,” Sadler said. “This was a pleasant surprise. Jose told me to throw out the horse’s last race because of the slop.”

The seven-furlong stake for California-breds, run before an on-track crowd of 19,020, drew eight starters, including four horses that had been in the claiming ranks. El Atroz, a son of Timeless Native and Black Star, ran for a $25,000 claiming price when he broke his maiden at Golden Gate last June in his second start. El Atroz’s other victory before Sunday came as the favorite in a six-furlong allowance at Bay Meadows in November.

Martin Pedroza rode El Atroz, bringing the horse from fifth with a four-wide move at the top of the stretch. El Atroz passed Offshore Pirate with about a sixteenth of a mile to run. El Atroz came in on the 2-1 favorite, Kingdom Found, as he made his winning move, but the result was left unchanged after a stewards’ inquiry.

Offshore Pirate, claimed by trainer Darrell Vienna for $32,000 two races back, finished second, 1 1/4 lengths ahead of Glowing Crown, with Kingdom Found fourth, another 2 3/4 lengths back.

El Atroz earned $64,850 for his breeders and owners, Cuadra TYT Inc. of Mexico City, and was timed in 1:13 2/5. His earnings going into the race totaled $37,300.

“I didn’t know anything about the horse, but my agent (Richie Silverstein) really liked him,” Pedroza said. “John Sadler told me this horse was supposed to have a lot of speed. I was sending him, but he wasn’t going anywhere. Once I took a hold of him, though, he started running. He started to come over a little in the stretch, but I grabbed him just in time.”

Kingdom Found, making his third start, had beaten maidens convincingly at Hollywood Park on Dec. 4.

“Martin’s horse drifted on us a little bit,” said Corey Nakatani, who rode Kingdom Found. “But my horse was already getting tired. It cost us our momentum, but the horse was tired. He didn’t get as much out of his work the other day as we would have liked, because the track was really fast (Sunday).”

Horse Racing Notes

John Sadler said that El Atroz means “the atrocity, a monster.” . . . Possible spots for El Atroz are the El Camino Real Derby at Bay Meadows on Jan. 23 or the San Vicente Breeders’ Cup Stakes at Santa Anita on Feb. 7. . . . Kent Desormeaux, sidelined since Dec. 11 when he suffered a fractured skull after being kicked in the head by a horse in a race at Hollywood Park, is scheduled for a doctor’s examination today. When Desormeaux gets the medical approval, his agent, Gene Short, said that he will need at least a week of galloping horses before he resumes riding. “I think Kent will pick up right where he left off,” Short said. Desormeaux led the country in purses in 1992 with $14.1 million.

Mickey Walls didn’t ride Sunday because of flu and one of his scheduled mounts, Bering Gifts, won the last race with apprentice Laurie Gulas aboard. . . . Jolypha’s start in the El Encino Stakes next Sunday is dependent upon a fast track. It would be her second American start and the first since a third-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Classic. . . . Gary Stevens won two races Sunday, giving him 16 winners for the first eight days of the meet. Martin Pedroza, who also had two winners, is in second place with 10.