Well, basically it works like this: The winners of a handful of races are exempt from the ballot and can run as long as their owners/trainers want them to. They're the first three on the order of entry list - El Segundo, Leica Falcon, Perlin. Then, the rest of the order is based purely on the weight assigned to them by the handicapper. This whole system seems a bit silly really because it's all based on the handicapper's original opinion of the horses a couple of months before the race is actually run.

The higher up the horse's handicap weight is compared to weight for age, the more likely it is to gain a start. That's why owners/trainers will often actually want their horses to be given a penalty by the handicapper after winning one of the lead up feature races. It's because it will raise their horse up the order of entry.

WFA for Hollow Bullet is 54 whereas WFA for Confectioner and Sir Dex is 58. That means that on the weights, Hollow Bullet is just 2.5 kgs below WFA, and Sir Dex and Confectioner are 5 and 5.5 kgs below. That's why they're so far down the list.

Hope that explains it a bit for you.