SO the superlatives were out in force last weekend after the Dubai World Cup. Arrogate’s troubled last to first run astounded his trainer Bob Baffert while the analysts, ratings experts and scribes spent the week coming to terms with the figures the performance warranted and where to place it in the context of great horses we have witnessed.

Baffert began the adulation: “He’s the best I’ve ever seen in my life. I can’t believe he’s won. That’s the greatest horse I’ve seen since Secretariat.”

It was a few levels up the hyperbole scale to Sir Henry Cecil’s quiet assessment of Frankel after Ascot: “He’s the best that I have ever had and the best that I’ve seen.”

By coincidence, it was close to the 100th anniversary of the birth of greatest US horse of all time, and the commentator Terry Spargo brought the comparison, “the Man o’ War of the 21st century” in commentary on Arrogate’s win.

On Racing UK’s analysis earlier in the week, time expert James Willoughby called Arrogate, “an extraordinary animal in term of his ability to keep galloping,” “one of the greatest horses of all time,” and the “best horse of the last 20 years in terms of dirt, quite a bit better than American Pharaoh.”

Timeform assessment was to rate him “of outstanding merit, the best that Timeform has seen in the last 25 years or so since it began comprehensively rating horses in North America.”

Only in the US did he still have something to prove to one expert last year. He had top Beyer figure of 122 for the Travers (behind a highest figure for Ghostzapper 128 in 2004), while Frosted was given a higher figure (123) last season for his Met Mile win.

So in context, four Grade 1 wins from August to March earned the praise from Baffert that puts Arrogate better than Spectacular Bid, Affirmed, Seattle Slew, Cigar, Ghostzapper, Curlin and Zenyatta.

Timeform assess Arrogate at 141, joint in their classifications with Mill Reef, behind 147 Frankel, 145 Sea-Bird, 144 Brigadier Gerard, Tudor Minstrel, 142 Abernant and Ribot.

He’s rated better than Dancing Brave, Dubai Millennium, Harbinger, Sea The Stars, Shergar, and Vaguely Noble on 140.

That is for a horse who still started second-favourite to California Chrome in the Breeders’ Cup.

Gun Runner, beaten 15 lengths in the Travers is the key horse, but did not appear anything out of the ordinary for some time last season, consistent though he is at Grade 1 level. He was third in the Kentucky Derby, fifth in the Haskell and third in the Travers.

The best horse Arrogate has met was California Chrome and yet many left Santa Anita thinking if Victor Espinoza had committed earlier he might have held on. The rematch was a non-event as Chrome was injured.

So pre-Dubai, there were still questions. His main rivals travelled from the US with him. In overcoming the interference at the start, to beat Gun Runner was probably the equal of his 15 length Travers run, had they started on level terms in Dubai.

Sometime its no harm to question. Visually impressive runs like Dubai Millennium’s demolition of Sendawar in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes, Hawk Wing’s rout in the Lockinge, Harbinger’s King George and Frankel’s Guineas and International wins are countered by a Gladiatorus winning the Dubai Duty Free with form never to be repeated and A Shin Hikari’s Prix d’Ispahan last year, so we can be sceptical one huge run. Arrogate repeated his big win of last year so he looks like the real deal, even with just four Grade 1s in comparison to what Secretariat and Frankel did in their careers.

What was also relevant from the Dubai win, was that he travelled abroad, overcame trouble in running, won impressively and without Lasix.

“He eats them alive like a great white shark,” Bob Baffert’s acclaim. Let’s hope we see him do it a few more times.