diff --git a/tests/TestCase/ORM/QueryRegressionTest.php b/tests/TestCase/ORM/QueryRegressionTest.php
index 2d8be3c84da..aa9e0f86b6e 100644
--- a/tests/TestCase/ORM/QueryRegressionTest.php
+++ b/tests/TestCase/ORM/QueryRegressionTest.php
@@ -551,11 +551,13 @@ public function testDeepBelongsToManySubqueryStrategy2()
      */
     public function testDeepHasManyEitherStrategy()
     {
+        $this->loadFixtures('Tags', 'FeaturedTags', 'TagsTranslations');
+        $tags = TableRegistry::get('Tags');
+
         $this->skipIf(
-            $this->connection->driver() instanceof \Cake\Database\Driver\Sqlserver,
+            $tags->connection()->driver() instanceof \Cake\Database\Driver\Sqlserver,
             'SQL server is temporarily weird in this test, will investigate later'
         );
-        $this->loadFixtures('Tags', 'FeaturedTags', 'TagsTranslations');
         $tags = TableRegistry::get('Tags');
         $featuredTags = TableRegistry::get('FeaturedTags');
         $featuredTags->belongsTo('Tags');