Yes, If you imagine the bend being pulled over or through something, the parallel lead of the reever will risk spilling it. The right angle nature of the zeppelin bend will instead just slip past with no issues.
For the slipping through issue: when I took a river rescue course they told us to use the (horror!) overhand bend (#1410) since it slipped through a carabiner the easiest with the leads to just one side. I asked about the Ashley bend: the instructor agreed that it was more secure, but also non-trivial to teach to the typical non knotty person (the other participants were struggling with the 10 common and simple knots as was), and therefore unlikely to be tied correctly. I wonder if that is part of the reason the river rescue folks love the no-knot: it is extremely unlikely to be tied wrong.