According to Laura Hillenbrand's biography of Seabiscuit, Howard's early car dealership in San Francisco was given a boost by the hand of fate; on the day of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, he was one of the few individuals who had operational vehicles in the city, and was thus able to help the rescue effort significantly.

In 1921, long before he bought Seabiscuit, Charles Howard purchased the 16,000-acre (6,475 ha) Ridgewood Ranch at Willits in Mendocino County.

[1] Used as a secondary residence, by the 1930s Howard had converted part of the ranch into a thoroughbred horse breeding and training center.

Charles Howard died of a heart attack in 1950 and was buried in the Cypress Lawn Memorial Park in Colma, California.

Ridgewood Ranch was sold by his heirs, with some of the horses sent to his son Lindsay's Binglin Stable in Moorpark, California.