New York ? East Cide, West Cide, and on the World Wide Web, a fairy tale named Funny Cide is unfolding in thoroughbred racing.

The next chapter in this extraordinary saga will be written Saturday, when Funny Cide attempts to win the Belmont Stakes and become the first Triple Crown champion in a quarter-century.

“It’s something you always dream about but you never think it can come true,” says Jose Santos, Funny Cide’s jockey.

Welcome to Funny Cide frenzy, now in full swing and about to reach fever pitch at 5:38 p.m. CDT — post time for the 11/2-mile Belmont, the final and most grueling leg of the Triple Crown races.

“The anticipation is building,” says Jack Knowlton, general partner of Sackatoga Stable, a group that includes six high school pals from Sackets Harbor, N.Y., who shelled out $75,000 to buy Funny Cide. “It was almost unbearable before the Preakness. I can’t imagine what it’ll be like before the Belmont.”

And word is out: Funny Cide is a superstar, owned by a bunch of “regular guys,” trained by journeyman Barclay Tagg and ridden by New York regular Santos, wrongly linked to carrying something illegal when he won the Kentucky Derby.

“The whole story is why America loves him,” Tagg’s assistant Robin Smullen said this week. “The story about paying $75,000 for him, him sort of being the underdog, and it’s the ninth horse these people have ever owned. It’s all that more than it is actually Funny Cide.

“But, of course, it’s because of Funny Cide.”

At Belmont Park, there’s a sign at the front gate welcoming race fans to Funny Cide’s home track, grooms and hotwalkers are walking around the backstretch wearing “We Love Funny Cide” buttons, and artist LeRoy Neiman showed up one morning to begin work on a Funny Cide portrait.

Funny Cide and his trainer, Barclay Tagg, ride on the track at Belmont Park. The two practiced Thursday in Elmont, N.Y., in preparation for Saturday's Belmont Stakes.

Even trainer Bobby Frankel, who will send out Empire Maker to try and spoil the party, is paying attention.

“You got a New York-bred, and you got a gelding,” Frankel said. “And you got guys (owners) I read about the other day that I was interested in. Racing needs things like this. Even the Santos thing, bad or good, gets people thinking about racing.”

Win or lose Saturday, Funny Cide has already made history. He’s the first New York-bred to win the Derby and the first gelding to challenge for the Triple Crown, won by such great colts as Whirlaway, Citation, Secretariat, Seattle Slew and Affirmed.

Promotions people are trying to take advantage.

Santos threw out the ceremonial first pitch at Yankee Stadium on May 27 — 10 days after winning the Preakness. Triple Crown sponsor Visa will pay Funny Cide’s owners a $5 million bonus if the horse wins the Belmont. The owners have set up funnycide.com and created Funny Cide Ventures.

Saratoga has long been known as racing’s Mecca, but the unofficial headquarters of Funny Cide mania has gone bonkers for the horse born in town at Joe and Anne McMahon’s farm.

When he won the Derby, hundreds of fans jammed into the harness track to watch.

“You could feel the vibrations throughout the whole building,” bartender Ray Topjian said. For the Belmont, “I guarantee the place will be packed.”