THREE greyhound races had to be abandoned at Capalaba on Sunday after a red-bellied black snake slithered into the starting boxes.
It came just days after the track, situated near Tingalpa Creek, flooded when heavy rain lashed the south-east.
Capalaba Greyhound Club president John Catton said the snake made its way into the boxes just before race nine.
"The starter was standing down there and it crawled straight across the concrete about a metre away from him and went straight under the boxes," Mr Catton said.
"We have had a few snakes that have made home down there before, but only carpet pythons, never a venomous snake."
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Mr Catton said they tried to remove the snake but it was hell-bent on staying in the boxes.
"He came out once (and) we shooed him away, then he went back onto the grass area outside the track," he said.
"He turned around and came back onto the track. We tried to shoo him off but he just got away on us.
"He went straight back under the boxes and he wouldn't come out. We tried blowing him out with a blower vac but the little fella didn't want to move."
Mr Catton said club officials spent more than an hour trying to remove the snake so races could continue.
"We didn't want to hurt him," he said. "He was a little one foot long red-bellied black snake.
"We let him be after that. No doubt he would have made his way out of there and taken off ... we hope.
The last three races of Sunday's program were abandoned, including the Con Sciacca Capalaba Cup.
"The plan is we will run it this Sunday," Mr Catton said.
"The others have been called abandoned, so there will just be other races this week for them in our race program."
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