A Chessie is a real man's dog, when you get a great one there's nothing to touch them, but they need a really good handler.
I know you miss her, but at least you've got her baby. I may breed my younger dog if she turns out to be as good as I suspect she is.
My older dog didn't see a duck until she was 3, but she has her CGC, her CD, her AX and AXJ (AKC) and her AD and AJ (USDAA). She got her SHR in short order but we have had some handling issues so we're still working on HR ("Who the heck is the retriever here, anyway?")
She absolutely nailed her JH - and by the way you haven't missed much, those AKC tests are awful. The first one we went to, the marks were so difficult they were more along the order of a Seasoned test in UKC . . . 32 dogs went to the line on Saturday and only 19 went on to the water in the afternoon. And then the water was awful too. Sunday was much the same. If you can imagine asking a Junior dog to do a channel swim and expecting him to stay in the water . . . TWO land-water-land retrieves with the birds falling in heavy brush . . . a mark that fell behind some trees into a ditch, so the dogs could only see it for the split second that it was falling between the bottom of the branches and the top of the grass . . . and then the worst of all, a live flier that was shot over a 10-15' tall mound of overgrown grading dirt, so that the bird might fall behind, beside, or on top of the mound. My dog got a 'gimme' on that one, her bird fell on the front face of the mound with the breast feathers up, it might as well have been a neon sign. But otherwise, she was completely unimpressed with the tricks and snags built into the tests, she just ran out (or swam out), picked up the birds, and brought them back. In a crisis I always fall back on agility commands -- got some laughter from the judges in one Started test when I yelled, "go RIGHT!" but of course she did go right and she was the only dog in that test who didn't bank run.
My young girl is extremely well bred and could probably pass a Started test right now, but I have a tendency to hold them back until I'm sure they can pass. Silly, but there you are.