PRESS ENTER STALLS ON DAY ONE

Royal Ascot's opening-day card comprising three Group One races may be the connoisseurs' choice, but in terms of newspaper coverage it is the least colourful.

Papers published on Wednesday to Saturday will brim with spreads devoted to fashion - good, garish and ghastly - while diary writers will wickedly reveal secrets from the who's who they find at lunch parties around the racecourse. And there will be racecourse action to report on, illustrated by photographs from the previous day.

Today's papers can only tee up the meeting, a task attacked with relish by the Racing Post, which invariably dedicates its front page to a montage of scenes on big occasions. Its graphics team have been given full rein today, overlaying racehorses and racegoers over a photo of Ascot's paddock and accompanied by the headline 'Kingdom of heaven', a reference to the appearance today of US star Animal Kingdom.

Not that all the Racing Post's tipsters believe he will be king, for Pricewise (Tom Segal) and Gerald Delamere reckon Trade Storm is 'cracking value to maul Animal'. The Sun's racing pullout sides with Elusive Kate - headline 'Kate expectations'.

The Daily Express's computerman (Stuart Brodkin) favours the American raider, as does Jamie Spencer, the jockey whose column appears in the Daily Star, while The Daily Telegraph's Hotspur and Marlborough are also fans. In focusing on the St James's Palace Stakes the same paper's J A McGrath says trainer Jim Bolger 'is about to take one of the biggest racing gambles of modern times'. That refers to Dawn Approach's appearance, 17 days after finishing last in the Investec Derby.

Marcus Townend of the Daily Mail and Newsboy of the Daily Mirror are not expecting a return to winning ways for the colt, however. They side with Toronado, who has a bit to prove, but whose breathing should be helped with a spoon-shaped bit. Chris McGrath, writing in The Independent, opts for Mars.

Any win for Lady Jane Cecil - following the death last week of her husband Sir Henry - will make headlines this week, and several scribes reckon Tiger Cliff will provide it in today's Ascot Handicap. Townend reckons a victory for the horse will be 'the defining moment of Royal Ascot 2013'.

The Guardian's Greg Wood alights on another key element of the week - terrestrial TV coverage on Channel 4, which takes over from the BBC. Wood's amusing appraisal of the swap includes a reminder that all this week's Royal races will be shown live by the broadcaster, and not lopped off after the fourth, as was the BBC's wont. 'Even Countdown has made way for the racing', writes Wood. 'It must be serious'.

While many local papers' sports pages are currently carrying close-season football stories, the Ascot News majors on the Bracknell Bees Ice Hockey team, although racing also gets its share of coverage. 'Ready for the influx of 300,000 race fans' is the paper's front-page headline above an article which gauges the Royal meeting's influence on local people and businesses.

The paper quotes Andrew King, 18, who says: "I don't tend to join in with the racegoing, but go to the pub and watch people in silly hats. It's an amusing spectacle."

Horses for courses, maybe, but Royal Ascot 2013 has two stars fewer than the 2012 version, which boasted Frankel to start the meeting, and Black Caviar to end it. This is picked up by The Times' Alan Lee, who is reminded of 1960s music promoters who could open a show with the Beatles and close it with the Rolling Stones. Comparing Royal Ascots of last year and this, Lee writes: "The storylines of 2013 are not so dazzlingly obvious but, as ever with this extravaganza, they will unfold with colour and drama'. Too true.