Furthermore, may not be relevant since not keys are pressed to select another boot up disk, but what is connected to the USB port on the left?
Also OP, does this situation occur with the battery removed (you have a 2009 MBP so it's removable) and only connected to a correct external power adapter? Does this occur with a fresh external OSX/macOS boot drive (battery in/out)?
Can you record booting up in verbose mode?