Shamal needs to run like the wind All class: Shamal Wind is stepping up in grade on Saturday. LIGHTLY-raced sprinter Shamal Wind would be only the third three-year-old filly in 30 years to win Saturday's $400,000 group 1 Oakleigh Plate at Caulfield if she was successful. With Me (1991) and Miss Kournikova (2001) managed to beat their older rivals, with Miss Kournikova smashing the track record and With Me overcoming barrier 18. But Shamal Wind's trainer, Robert Smerdon, is not daunted by the scarcity of fillies to have won the Oakleigh Plate, or the fact that Shamal Wind is having just her fourth start. They were very good fillies, but I think Shamal Wind has deserved her place in the field. She is getting a very nice weight (50.5) and she has got that weight because she is the age she is," Smerdon said It's a group 1 and her form is faultless and she won't get into the race next year when she is four with that weight. Bookmakers have installed the daughter of Dubawi at $5 second favourite behind boom West Australian Barakey ($3.50). Smerdon had the option of running Shamal Wind against her own age at Caulfield on Saturday but has elected to throw her in at the deep end. "We could have stayed against the three-year-olds but we always had this race in the back of our minds and the way she has come through her first-up run, it's worth having a crack at," Smerdon said. Shamal Wind has had a huge boom on her since running fast time in winning at Flemington on Oaks day at just her second start. Smerdon had warned that the filly would be vulnerable first-up when resuming in fillies and mares grade at Moonee Valley on February 8. After going straight to the front, Shamal Wind showed plenty of determination to score a narrow win. "A lot of people expected her to go to Moonee Valley and win easily, but I thought her effort was good because she was a three-year-old taking on the older mares and was a bit underdone so I was happy to come away with a win," he said.