Vertical feed is now the preferred design on most all high end Cockers, and with good reason. It does away with elbows and sits the hopper nice and low with a good balance. I have a right feed Cocker as a backup only because it was cheap at the time. STO and Black Magic Cockers are alright but not my first (or even 2nd or 3rd) choices for enhanced models...a Freeflow or Mark II or ANS GenX 3 is a much better buy. Try as many as you can in person to see which does best for you. Cockers come in enough variety to suit just about anyone. I'm very, very happy with my S&M and wouldn't trade it for anything else.
