Bark of legendary retriever of golden coat? (4)

I believe the answer is:
argo
'golden coat?' is the definition.
The definition suggests a singular noun which matches the answer.
'bark of legendary retriever of' is the wordplay.
'bark of legendary retriever' becomes 'arg' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'of' becomes 'o''.
'arg'+'o'='ARGO'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for argo that I've seen before include "Old boat" , "Old sailing vessel" , "Jason's legendary ship" , "Jason's boat" , "Ancient ship" .)
