ELMONT, N.Y. -- Silver Charm is quickly learning that the same faces he keeps seeing at all these big race tracks aren't equine friends at all, but rather paid assassins.

He must be beginning to wonder if he has a bull's-eye painted on his hind quarters, i.e., pin the first loss on the Triple Crown threat.

HE HAS HAD HIS FIVE WEEKS OF FAME now and, during those five weeks, every 3-year-old colt in America has wanted a piece of him.

This probably explains why he sleeps standing up. Out of one eye, he sees blinking cameras and cheering crowds who treat him like some big movie star, Mister Ed, or the second-coming of Secretariat.

Out of the other eye, he sees himself as a marked horse. Who would blame him if he feels like John Dillinger taking in a movie at the Biograph. His head is on a constant swivel.

If Silver Charm does win the Belmont Stakes on Saturday, he will become only the 12th horse in history and the first since Affirmed in 1978 to win the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont all in that once-in-a-lifetime, 3-year-old season.

Silver Charm, vintage pewter in color and endurance-rich through his bloodlines, will be trying to make history while winning at 1 1/2 miles for the first time in his life. The other six horses in the field will just be trying to beat him.

THERE ARE THREE ENTRIES IN THIS seven-horse field who can beat the 6-5 favored Silver Charm:

Free House finally has a favorable post position -- sixth in the seven-horse Belmont field -- from where jockey Kent Desormeaux can now stalk Gary Stevens and Silver Charm the same way Stevens (drawing outside at Pimlico) stalked Free House in the Preakness. In the Derby, Free House was stuck too far outside (13th) in a crowded 13-horse field.

Says a confident John Toffan, co-owner of Free House, on the eve of the Belmont: "I wouldn't want to trade horses for this race."

From that near-catastrophe, Touch Gold suffered a quarter crack to his left front hoof -- the result of a chunk of flesh being taken out his heel during his stumble. He has been fitted with a special aluminum shoe to accommodate a three-inch patch that covers a wired-up surgery job performed May 28. That isn't a lot of time to recover.

A.P. Indy won the 1992 Belmont with a patched hoof. However, more recently, Unbridled's Song -- '96 Kentucky Derby favorite -- was patched and fitted to a special shoe leading up to that race, but then badly faded entering the stretch at Churchill Downs and finished a disappointing fifth.

He was a wire-to-wire winner of the Illinois Derby in mid-April, although he finished seventh in the San Rafael Stakes six weeks earlier.

Aboard Wild Rush will be Jerry Bailey, arguably the best tactical jockey in the business today. But the real mystique with Wild Rush is that he is trained by Richard Mandella, who ended Cigar's all-time record-tying winning streak at 16 races last year with a horse named Dare and Go.

Mandella says he will feel just as badly if he aborts Silver Charm's bid for the Triple Crown as he did when he snapped Cigar's bid to overtake Citation for the longest winning streak in thoroughbred racing history.

How long was that? "About half a second," Mandella said.

NOW I DIDN'T MENTION CRYPTO STAR, a 6-1 choice, as one of the possibilities for an upset Saturday because I don't think he can win. But keep in mind that Crypto Star's jockey is the legendary Pat Day, who was aboard '89 Belmont winner Easy Goer when Sunday Silence lost his Triple Crown bid.

That was the last time a Triple Crown threat arrived at Belmont Park.

Silver Charm is the 24th horse to come here with an opportunity to make history. Only 11 have pulled it off.

It's 1 1/2 miles -- longest of the Triple Crown races. It's three races, held in three different states, over a span of five weeks.

A dozen Triple Crown bids have failed, including the last four by Spectacular Bid (1979), Pleasant Colony (1981), Alysheba (1987) and Sunday Silence (1989).

These Triple Crown wannabes came close but they finished third, third, fourth and second, respectively.

The Belmont competition

Will a Silver Charm win save horse racing?

Silver Charm, Free House familiar foes

Alydar's trainer says Silver Charm has right stuff

New tune plays at Belmont

Triple Crown facts and figures