Catt rhizome growing at vertical slant - help with repotting placement?

[KristinL]

Hi, I'm somewhat of a newbie, so I'm hoping to get some help on this topic. I've searched and searched but can't seem to find anything!

Anyway, I've got a couple smallish Cattleyas that I bought from Lowe's recently that I'm in the process of re-potting. When I got the plants all un-potted and cleaned off from their original mix, I discovered that their rhizomes seem to have been placed (and have been growing) at about a 45 degree angle. (So the backbulbs had been positioned deeper in the mix, and the new growth was coming up out of the pot at about a 45 degree angle.)

Please tell if this is right or not, but it was my understanding that Catt rhizomes should be horizontal, with their pseudobulbs/leaves growing straight up to the sky (perpendicular to the rhizome)?

So now we get to my dilemma. I'm not sure how to re-pot these plants. If I re-pot them in the orientation they were in previously, I feel like that will just cause problems. The backbulbs will be deeper in the mix, and the new growth seems to be coming up vertically right out of the pot. (Do Catts always grow linearly out from the rhizome, or will the plant eventually correct for the angle and start growing out horizontally again?)

The other option is to try to re-plant with the rhizome more horizontally, but because of the way the plant has grown up previously, if I do that then all the pseudobulbs and leaves will end up at like a 45 degree angle sticking out the side of the pot. (With the rhizome originally placed at a ~45 degree angle, the existing pseudobulbs/leaves are growing at a ~45 degree angle from the rhizome so that they were pointing straight up at the sky -- rather than perpendicular to the rhizome.)

Okay, I hope that sort of made sense. Help?