As far as I know, Jeff hasn't shown Goldens in a long time. He and his former wife, Barbara, did show Goldens years ago under the Pepperhill prefix. Back then, there was less of the "foofing and poofing" than is done today.
Jeff then became involved in a feisty small breed, the ??? Petit Griffon (or something like that). That could have made him take a step back and take another look at the Golden breed.
Back in the 80s, I met Jeff accidentally while walking one of my dogs across a soccer field at a Natl Specialty. He stopped me to ask if he had ever judged the dog. He had not

The dog was a Ki gr-grandson sired by a ** Golden who had a touch of Tigathoe with some show stuff thrown in. So, even then, Jeff was kind of open-minded taking note of a nice dog when he saw it, even outside of the show ring. In fact, that WAS a very nice dog, and he could mark, too
At a CCA, some years ago, Jeff was one of the evaluators, and he singled out one of the field-bred dogs to friends around the judging ring to note the dog's superior front-end structure. As per the rules, the evaluators do not know who these dogs are when they see them in their ring. The owner also was not a conformation person, so also unknown to Jeff. Later, when Jeff learned who the dog was, he suggested showing the dog at some small shows. He admitted that the dog would have a hard go at the show ring since the dog was quite "different" from the style prevalent there. No, I am not the dog's breeder, though I wish I could claim to be
In her later years, Marcia Schlehr noted that Betty Gay, known mostly for her show breeding, had an "epiphany" when she visited the Scottish highlands where the Golden breed originated. When Betty went hiking in the area, she realized that dogs who could hunt in such terrain had to really be physically fit. And also felt it would be a serious influence of how she judged dogs in the conformation ring thereafter.
I think it's valuable to get the field-bred dogs into the CCA evaluations. Many of these judges may never have seen "hard working condition" before, so how can they know what it feels like under their hands? I recall that Push was also used as a demo dog for the Judges Education seminar at the National at Gettysburg in 2005.
I understand well how difficult it is for the field people to get their dogs in front of the conformation judges, but the GRCA National Specialty is a high-profile outing ... it would be so great to see some of the outstanding field dogs out there in the Field Trial Classes. If those judges never see a high-level working dog any other time, it would be very educational for the judges to see a good selection of them at least once in their judging careers. If we could get more judges to see them, it could make a difference in how those judges think.