diff --git a/lib/QueryRewriter.pm b/lib/QueryRewriter.pm
index da254359..da57f202 100644
--- a/lib/QueryRewriter.pm
+++ b/lib/QueryRewriter.pm
@@ -248,6 +248,8 @@ sub distill_verbs {
 
    if ( $query =~ m/\A\s*LOAD/i ) {
       my ($tbl) = $query =~ m/INTO TABLE\s+(\S+)/i;
+      $tbl ||= '';
+      $tbl =~ s/`//g;
       return "LOAD DATA $tbl";
    }
 
diff --git a/t/lib/QueryRewriter.t b/t/lib/QueryRewriter.t
index 68a19d00..269ae97a 100644
--- a/t/lib/QueryRewriter.t
+++ b/t/lib/QueryRewriter.t
@@ -1422,6 +1422,12 @@ is(
    "distill LOAD DATA (bug 821692)"
 );
 
+is(
+   $qr->distill("LOAD DATA LOW_PRIORITY LOCAL INFILE 'file' INTO TABLE `tbl`"),
+   "LOAD DATA tbl",
+   "distill LOAD DATA (bug 821692)"
+);
+
 is(
    $qr->distill("insert ignore_bar (id) values (4029731)"),
    "INSERT ignore_bar",