diff --git a/doc/Changelog b/doc/Changelog
index 8cf73dfb0..68ac8646d 100644
--- a/doc/Changelog
+++ b/doc/Changelog
@@ -1,3 +1,7 @@
+11 October 2017: Wouter 
+	- Fix #1749: With harden-referral-path: performance drops, due to
+	  circular dependency in NS and DS lookups.
+
 10 October 2017: Wouter 
 	- tag 1.6.7
 	- trunk has version 1.6.8.
diff --git a/iterator/iterator.c b/iterator/iterator.c
index 6c49709ad..d67d8eb36 100644
--- a/iterator/iterator.c
+++ b/iterator/iterator.c
@@ -914,6 +914,9 @@ generate_ns_check(struct module_qstate* qstate, struct iter_qstate* iq, int id)
 		generate_a_aaaa_check(qstate, iq, id);
 		return;
 	}
+	/* no need to get the NS record for DS, it is above the zonecut */
+	if(qstate->qinfo.qtype == LDNS_RR_TYPE_DS)
+		return;
 
 	log_nametypeclass(VERB_ALGO, "schedule ns fetch", 
 		iq->dp->name, LDNS_RR_TYPE_NS, iq->qchase.qclass);